Will Lightning strike again with the Cars franchise? After the misfire that was Cars 2, Pixar and Walt Disney are hoping that Cars 3 sends audiences’ engines revving for the third time as they follow Lightning McQueen and his dreams of staying on top in the world of automobile racing.
Sadly, the film does not go very fast at all… despite what was teased in the Cars 3 trailer. In fact, it seems to simply spin its wheels with a whole lot of wind drag as it tries to get where it is going. Worse still, it tries to elevate a female character in way that feels forced, wrongfully executed and does not send the right message to little girls about how things are and how they should be in the world.
Owen Wilson returns as McQueen and he’s as optimistic and as awe-shucks as ever. That’s why he’s perfect for the role and largely why millions of boys and girls the world over are in love with the talking car that goes really fast. In a very typical sports-theme movie way (think Rocky 3), Cars 3 begins with our hero on top of the racing world, winning every chance he gets.
Suddenly, a rookie named Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer, Free Fire) comes out of nowhere and eclipses McQueen and beats him to the checkered flag. The next several races produce the same result. Only thing, with each race, more of McQueen’s contemporaries are cut or retire as Storm-like, stream-lined and manufactured using the latest technology racers take over the sport. It sends him back to Radiator Falls with his tailpipe between his, well… you get the picture.
Opportunity arises when his sponsors sell their interest in the former champ to Sterling (Nathan Fillion), who sets him up in the state-of-the-art facility with a “trainer,” Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo). Everything he is learning goes against the expertise his mentor Doc Hudson (Paul Newman) bestowed on him. But, racing’s changed and Lightning believes he has to change with it. Yet, nothing on a computer simulator or anything of that sort is helping him go faster.
Cruz and Lightning develop an interesting relationship. But, it fails to flower into what filmmakers give us for a third and final act of Cars 3 in terms of these two. That’s an issue we have with the entire effort, besides the fact that sadly… it is just plain dull.
Co-writer and director Brian Fee establishes a pace early on that is ironically the opposite of what car racing is… fast, fierce and pedal-to-the-metal action. In a sense, he is the pace car in a race that never gets out of the way and allows the competitors to compete. Fee’s film fails to get off the ground in any manner. In a lot of ways, it gives us the sense that it is just going through the motions. That is even with a plot progression that should have had us cheering. Instead, we’re left questioning how it achieved its end in the manner it did. The road traveled does not equate the finish line crossed.
First off, Kerry Washington’s Natalie Certain is bemoaned on the “set” in the movie racing broadcast show in a way that feels downright sexist. She’s a statistic expert and the only female on the broadcast team. It frankly feels more Veronica Corningstone — a la Anchorman — than a movie made in 2017. I mean, Christina Applegate’s Corningstone was a glass ceiling breaker in the 1970s! Progress is slow, sure. But in this case, it is not only anticlimactic, but it is archaic.
Secondly, the way Cruz is treated is no better. She is a trainer and expected to do no more. She has heard that her whole life, even though her dreams are more centered on being the next Lightning McQueen. It just all adds up to an misguided message about women in the workforce that doesn’t seem to fit in a animated movie that clearly sought to inspire women to reach for their goals and achieve them.
We love that old saying about the sum sometimes being greater (or let’s hope at least equal) than all of the parts. But, in Cars 3 the results for Cruz and McQueen seem put upon us in way that does not add up when looking backwards over the elements of the film. That ending is off, and clearly feels as if this franchise is trying to triumphantly race into a new direction. However noble the effort is, the result is misguided. With the stuck in neutral aspect of the rest of the film, it all adds up to a second straight Cars misfire.
Looks like Lightning can only be captured once.
Grade: C-