Comfortably Middle of the Road
Pixar's Cars franchise has never been their crowning storytelling achievement. Some insist it exists only to sell toys, but there's always been more to it than that. John Lasseter is a car aficionado, and the first film is based in part on a Route 66 road trip he took with his family. Cars' story of an arrogant hotshot stuck in a small, middle-of-nowhere town who learns to stop and smell the roses is a well-worn idea, but Lasseter and the team at Pixar did infuse heart and some earnest nostalgia and Americana into the narrative. That's why the first Cars works. Cars 2 was a diversion from the formula that put comic relief Mater at the fore, and the film suffered for it. Cars 3 refocuses on pro racer Lightning McQueen, telling another predictable story with enough heart and humor to get it across the finish line.
As director Brian Fee's threequel begins, Lighting (Owen Wilson) is facing competition from a new breed of race car, led by unrelenting jerk Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer). Following a visceral crash, Lightning decides to spend his offseason training with the latest high-tech treadmills, simulators and speed trackers. His new trainer, Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), is apparently the best in the business, but he chafes at her treatment of him as an out of shape and out of touch old-timer. From there, most of the film revolves around this developing mentor/mentee dynamic as Lightning reflects on the guidance he received from Paul Newman's Doc Hudson in the first film.
Newman, who passed away in 2008, is present in the film in flashback through carefully chosen, unused recordings made during production on the original Cars. Though presented in glimpses, his presence in this film adds some considerable soul, at least for those who remember the first film fondly. Doc Hudson isn't a character for the ages, but Newman's enthusiasm for the character and for racing shines through even in bits and pieces.
Beyond this expansion of Newman's character, the film doesn't do anything particularly special. The Act I crash scene is probably one of the most violent things Pixar has ever animated—if Lightning were a person, there would be blood smeared all over the racetrack—but as with anything that can be rebuilt, Lightning is quickly reassembled with no lingering damage to anything but his reputation and ego. His working relationship with Cruz is a fresh dynamic compared to how he related to Doc in Cars, but where it all ends up is fairly predictable.
The one thing about the Cars franchise that is consistently enjoyable across all three films is the playful touch the animators and designers at Pixar bring to this universe. Perhaps the best element of Cars 2 is seeing the Pixar team translate James Bond-style spy action to a world of sentient cars. Cars 3 has its share of visual gags (and clever car puns), but visually what stands out the most is just how shockingly realistic some of the animation looks. You won't make the mistake of thinking Lightning or Mater are real cars with faces painted on, but in many scenes set amongst nature—therefore featuring no buildings animated to accommodate cars rather than people—I found myself thinking that if the Pixar gurus told me they just added the cars to live action footage, I would have believed them. It's beautiful work, made only more impressive by making the photo-realistic environments blend naturally with cartoonish (but also impressive looking) characters.
Cars 3 won't please everyone the way the very best Pixar films seem to; it doesn't take any big creative swings, but as a result it also doesn't miss. Fans of the first Cars will likely be happy to spend the better part of two hours with these characters again, and that's all we can really ask of this series. Pixar still has their good-natured wit and heart, and it's still a delight to experience, even if it's on cruise control this time.