“Cars 2″ 6 (out of 10)
June 27, 20112011 Rated: G 112 min. First Shown: 6/23/2011 (Bob’s Rating: 6)
I loved the original. John Lasseter is the driving force (no pun intended) behind Pixar’s ability to tell really great stories and I have enjoyed almost all of them. This film, however, has too much stuff in it that did not interest me (mainly most of the racing). The simplicity of the original, which was essentially a rip-off of the film “Doc Hollywood” caused that film to be almost completely character-driven. “Cars 2″ seems to dispense with much character development and goes all out to become an action film. This turns out to be a big mistake. There are a few places in the film where there are some ineffective errorts to employ character relationships, but these are not well handled.
My favorite animated film this year is still “Rio”. They stole Pixar’s playbook and gave us great characters telling a story with great heart. And they used really beautiful animation techniques to do it. “Cars 2″ has some impressive scenes in it, but nothing really memorable. Up to now my least favorite Pixar film was “The Incredibles” (probably due to the heavy reliance on action), but now “Cars 2″ is my least favorite Pixar film. I hope this becomes a wakeup call for them.
