CARS 2: Porn for Rednecks

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Join me for another movie I hate it is called Cars 2.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Directors: John Lasseter, Brad Lewis (co-director)
Writers: Ben Queen, John Lasseter, Brad Lewis, Dan Fogelman
Cast: Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, John Turturro, others, John Ratzenberger
Runtime: 106 mins.
2011

On Rotten Tomatoes, a critical film review aggregate, the first Cars movie sits at 74% positive reviews. This is already perplexing to me for reasons I enumerated in my review of that pile of greasy turds. But the real curiosity is the plummet of Cars 2 down to 39% positive reviews. I have to wonder about the people who felt favorably about Cars, but were let down by its sequel. The second movie is much like the first, but contorted to fit inside the structure of a very typical international espionage thriller. The best scenes in the film involve newcomer British spies Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer). Far more entertaining than watching cars do something they're designed to do (race) is watching them do something they have no business being able to do (covert ops), and this juxtaposition immediately propels the sequel ahead of the first entry in my estimation. Sure, Michael Caine sounds bored, and the plot is cookie cutter stuff that somehow manages to be both simplistic and convoluted, but at least it's something. At times, I felt like I was watching an actual movie, rather than a bunch of anthropomorphic cars farting around and being assholes to each other.

Unfortunately, this being a sequel to Pixar's main merchandising property, the characters from Cars have to be involved.* Unfortunately unfortunately, Pixar has realized that their primary demographic for this franchise are downhome southern redneck conservatives. With that realization firmly in pocket, they upgraded Larry the Cable Guy's tow truck Mater from goof-off sidekick to out and out protagonist.

*During the first scene of the movie, which details Finn McMissile's infiltration of an oil rig, I was blissfully able to pretend that we wouldn't be seeing the likes of Mater and McQueen ever again.

CARS: Porn for Children

Twenty years ago Pixar Animation Studios revolutionized cinema with the first full length completely computer-generated film. Two decades later and Pixar is still one of the most consistently groundbreaking studios in the business. Leading up to the release of their new film The Good Dinosaur, I will be going through Pixar's entire filmography at the rate of two movies a week. Now Cars.

Other Reviews in this Series.

Directors: John Lasseter, Joe Ranft
Writers: John Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Jorgen Klubien, Dan Fogelman, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin, Bonnie Hunt, Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, Don Lake, Steve Purcell, Dan Scanlon
Cast: Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman, Larry the Cable Guy, Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, George Carlin, John Ratzenberger, Michael Keaton
Runtime: 117 mins.
2006

I went into this looking forward to Cars. It's not every day you get to experience a new Pixar movie, and this was one of the two I hadn't seen (Cars 2 being the obvious counterpart). I had no high hopes, just a willingness to be lightly entertained.

Instead I disliked Cars from the very first shot. The psych-up voiceover interspersed with blurred shots of cars zooming past the camera and slow pans across the sleek shiny red metal exterior of the main character. It's meant to titillate, to ingratiate. Already, mere seconds into the film, the cars are presented as fetish objects meant to be worshiped and purchased in small plastic form. What better way to sell merchandise to children than to take something they already love, slap a face on it, and stuff its mouth with witty quips? Note that I do not use the term "fetish object" lightly. Maybe you think my post title a bit harsh, but the definition of pornography is a cultural artifact intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. What's more erotic to a child than the thrill of moving fast, or the noise of a revving engine? Cars is eroticism for children the way James Bond is eroticism for adults. My point is only enhanced by the movie's baldfaced insistence upon cars objectifying other cars, both for their athleticism and their sexual capacity. I'm not even joking, watch this movie again and notice the moments when one car stares at another's ass, or when a car delivers some sexually explicit line of dialogue that confuses you on a purely pragmatic level but also on the meta-emotional level of why is a Pixar movie forcing me to concoct unspeakable images of motor vehicles engaged in coitus???