Swift shot: This one isn’t for the really young’uns – mature themes throughout, and I counted five deaths and one rather vicious torture scene leading to the demise of Bruce Campbell – that dude is everywhere! Cars 2 is not a toddler friendly film, it is a spy thriller played out with cars. It was incredibly ingenious, mind you, with spectacular style and beyond-comparison cinematography. The grandiose feeling never got old, but what cost this a perfect five stars was that many of the Tow Mater jokes just didn’t cross the finish line. McQueen’s story takes second place to Mater’s big international adventure.
The film flashes on screen with a top secret message to one Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) to rendezvous with his contact in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. From the first shots in the sea, the detail (in Disney 3D) was near impossible to believe – and sets the pace for the rest of the film. These guys really spent some loving quality care to ensure the digital world was as real as possible. Much like a James Bond film, Finn’s first encounter with the bad-guys is over-the-top as he uses all manner of devices to escape his demise. And, as mentioned above, at least one death happens in the opening scene. Words like death and kill were used with stark frankness, I hardly remembered this wasn’t Daniel Craig at times. In short, there was violence and cars died.
A famous thrill-seeking billionaire, Sir Miles Axelrod (Eddie Izzard) has found a natural alternative to oil, called Allinol and wants to showcase his discovery to the world with a series of races across the globe – the World Grand Prix. Back in Radiator Springs, Tow Mater is vying for time with McQueen who is back in town, briefly, and it seems he never took Tow Mater to any of his Piston Cup races. More on that later. Mater manages to get McQueen involved in the World Grand Prix, but being Mater, he manages to get himself in trouble at the first location, Tokyo.
There, Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) meets both Finn and his partner, Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) as a desperate American agent stows vital intelligence with Mater. But, Mater keeps doing really stupid crap that starts to grate on McQueen (Owen Wilson). When Mater costs McQueen one of the races though, he finally lays into his friend about always causing trouble. He explains that’s why he never wanted him there at any of his Piston Cup races. Mater, though devastated, hardly has the time to think as he is swept into a whirlwind spy thriller. Very similar to “The Man Who Knew Too Little” or “The Man With One Red Shoe”, his British cohorts are convinced his stupidity is just a brilliant cover.
You have to pay attention while watching this film. I know a lot of parents are expecting to take their kids to this and think they can shut off their mental engines and just enjoy the film – not so. Your kid will not get the subtle, mature-themed intrigue – so get ready to do a lot of explaining, which will no doubt piss your neighbors off in the theater. But, don’t worry, I imagine a steady chorus of kids pestering their parents about why Mater is shooting bullets or has to defuse a bomb. It’s an interesting statement of the times I think, as we are in three theaters of combat as I write this review. Maybe I am just old-fashioned, but I expect a tamer, kid-friendly experience when I see a Disney film. Not sure how Walt would have felt about this one. Still, the film was highly entertaining!
This film doesn’t come close to a “G” rating. Sure, there is a moral message squeezed into the spy-thriller story as well, where McQueen reminds himself that he loves Mater because of his care-free, albeit foolish attitude . . . and at the end he encourages Mater to just be himself.
It was a lot of fun and the level of detail throughout was professional as you would expect from the Pixar team – and even the “Toy Story, Hawaiian Vacation” didn’t cut corners in production. This is a film you should probably check out in theaters, much like “Super 8”, it deserves a vast screen so your eyes can take in all the fine points. One thing I know for sure, this film will require several screenings to completely capture all the subtle nuances that add to the capacity to really immerse yourself in a completely fictional world, where there are no humans, just motor-craft. Made me wonder, after seeing this movie, what might a Rick Swift car look like? Heck, I wager you will be asking yourselves the same question.
