Review: Cars 3 Is The Surprise Hit Of The Year
- Oct 29, 2017
- 2 min read
Cars was a pretty cool idea, with some likeable characters and even more likeable concepts, but not much going for it in the plot department. Cars 2 was just plain bad. So when a friend suggested we sit and watch Cars 3 over dinner, I prepared to watch an awful soulless movie with way too much Larry The Cable Guy. Instead, I watched a gorgeous and touching movie with, well, still a little bit too much Larry The Cable Guy.
Lightning McQueen's (Owen Wilson - I know, right? Who knew?) winning streak comes to an end when cars with new technology such as Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer?!) are consistently beating him with ease, and a career-destroying crash puts him out of action for months. His friends send him to a new state-of-the-art Rust-Eze facility where his new sponsor Sterling (NATHAN FILLION?!) introduces him to his new trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo). Together they prepare Lightning for one more Piston Cup race which will determine the fate of Lightning's career.
Cars 2 was a film about Mater's (Cable Guy) feelings, which literally nobody cares about. So for Cars 3, Mater stayed home and appeared in maybe 3 scenes. This is the key to Cars 3's success.
But other than that, the film is emotional and resonating. Lightning is afraid of getting old and retiring, which is illustrated incredibly through parallels with Doc Hudson. Cruz is afraid of being stuck as a trainer forever and never becoming a racer. The cars in Cars are supposed to be cars with personalities, and never have these personalities been so human. It works really well as the focus of the movie, as opposed to feeling like Disney demanded a character arc which was forced in halfway through production.
The animation is nothing like I've ever seen before. Every grain of sand stuck in a tire tread, every spark that goes flying, and every beam of light that accurately reflects off Lightning's shiny paint is perfect. If the cars didn't move like living beings and have faces, Cars 3 would be indistinguishable from a live-action film shot on the best cameras money can buy.
Cars 3 isn't a perfect film - after all, Larry The Cable Guy is in it. All the characters outside of the main two are single-use vessels for either exposition, comic relief, or feelings / motivation for Lightning. But it's a heartfelt painting brought to life, and certainly one of Pixar's best films since Up in 2009.
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