David O'ConnellCars 2
June 21st 2011 04:39
Never a favourite child even amongst Pixar’s faithful, the original Cars (2006) was perhaps as close to sub-standard as this startlingly successful animation studio has ever come with its reliable output of family friendly fare. A sequel seemed superfluous in the extreme and though Cars 2, Once again helmed by the great John Lasseter, has little depth and an almost embarrassingly simplistic message lurking beneath its bonnet, it at least provides great eye candy.
Owen Wilson again feels somehow miscast as Lightning McQueen, a rather bland, it must be said, three time champion of the Piston Cup who now spends his off-seasons with dim-witted best buddy Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) in the dusty town of Radiator Springs before gearing up for the new season. When a cocky new challenger, Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) prompts an angered Mater to phone him on a national TV hook-up to declare his inferiority to McQueen, a challenge is issued.
A new event is crowned, the World Grand Prix, in which McQueen must battle all comers in three races across three countries. This allows the animators to go wild with their recreations of Tokyo, Paris, London and a scenic Italian coastal town, but the races themselves take a back seat to the espionage plot that is unfolding around them. That this plot directly involves the unwitting Mater who stumbles into it upon requiring a toilet break in the lead up to the first race is symptomatic of how little depth the narrative needs to be propelled along.
For much of the film’s duration, Mater’s ignorance of spy skills goes unsuspected by British Intelligence agents Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) who mistake his fortuitous stuff-ups as subtle genius. When it all goes pear-shaped and McQueen's life is on the line from the bad guys who are trying to exterminate their competitors in the fuel business, we know exactly who'll save the day.
Cars 2 is fun, no doubt about it. It’s easy to watch and races along, literally, from its opening salvo - a spectacular set-piece in which McMissile, on the search for evidence, is spotted and attempts to evade capture aboard a ship - to its dizzyingly colourful recreations of the cities visited. Especially attractive to the eye are the neon-studded environments that bring Tokyo to vivid life. Assisting the action is Michael Giacchino’s surf-rock score with its infectious main theme that will be reverberating in your head long after you leave the cinema.
At the end of the day however, despite the great entertainment it provides, there's a mild sense of underachievement created here from a product emerging out of Pixar’s seemingly infallible studio, home to classics like Wall-E (2008) and Ratatouille (2007) and the Toy Story trilogy. The moral of the story proves to be cloyingly trite and like an unwanted echo from dozens of past films: be true to yourself and accept people – or cars - for who they are, even buck-toothed simpletons allergic to car-washes.
Certainly the ambition is present in terms of upping the ante from the original film with its limited scale, but Cars 2 (2011) will quickly fade into the background against its star-studded stablemates. Caine likely had a ball providing his voice for McMissile, but Wilson is somehow underwhelming again as McQueen, a wimpy, slightly annoying hero. And seriously, couldn’t they have thought up a better catch-phrase this time around than Ka-Chow!! Lame!
Cars 2 opens in Australian cinemas this Thursday, June 23.
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