Movie Review: Cars 2 5-17-17
In
the sequel to the successful Pixar movie Cars, Lightning McQueen
competes in the Grand World Prix in three different countries.
Meanwhile, Mater gets confused for a spy and must help secret agents
Finn McMissle (Michael Caine) and Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) to
stop evil cars from blowing up McQueen, lead by Miles Axelrod.
I
am aware that this movie has quite a bit of hate, but a friend of mine
from Utah convinced me on something: Cars 2 is the closest kids will get
to seeing a spy movie. If you look at other live-action spy movies,
you'll see that they're not appropriate for children. However, Cars 2 is
definitely kid-friendly, and there's a good chance they could get
engrossed.
Kids
will also appreciate the message about being yourself; Mater is able to
foil the villains without the intelligence or bravery of a real spy.
Also,
while many of them are hit-and-miss, there are some good jokes from
Mater. My personal favorite scene is when Mater confuses wasabi with
pistachio ice cream and rinses in an indoor waterfall.
With
all this said, Cars 2 is still a flawed movie that kids will enjoy, but
adults and teens might sleep through it. Perhaps during the making of the
Cars films, Pixar was focused more on 'feeding the Beast' than taking
care of 'the ugly baby'. This is a metaphor Ed Catmull uses when Pixar
is making their films. Here's a link to Catmull talking about that metaphor below.
What
Catmull means is that ideas for good movies start life as 'ugly
babies'. They are nothing like the parents, and require nurturing to
form and grow. 'The hungry beast' represents deadlines for the movie,
and is required to keep the program afloat. To ignore the beast for the
sake of only pursuing interesting, creative ideas means putting your
program’s stability and momentum at stake. So which do you feed first:
the baby, or the beast?
It's
rather confusing, but somehow, I understand the metaphor. It appears in
Chapter 7 of Catmull's book, Creativity Inc. I personally hope that for
Cars 3, the folks at Pixar will raise 'the ugly baby' more and feed
less to 'the beast'.
Rating: 2 1/2 stars out of 5.
PS.
I am aware that I'm being a bit hypocritical here, but I have learned
that Cars and Cars 2 are more for kids than adults. However, in a year
without any new movies from Walt Disney Animation Studios, and many of
the other animated movies this year looking disposable, maybe Pixar will
have a chance to win both kids and adults with Cars 3.
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