Now in all honesty, Pixar were foolish to create this franchise. Why? Because it's a major step down from what the Incredibles did, especially with more human involvement than before and in some way, I think it was a very stupid idea to begin with. Both films are bad, no question about it and both of them don't offer anything new that hasn't already been done (yeah I'm sure there's at least one nostalgic cartoon that had this idea before Pixar). But I digress, let's take a look at Pixar's possibly worst films to date:
Cars
So our story begins at a race track where the many cars (who have a mind of there own. Gee, that hasn't been done before (that's sarcasm by the way). The favourites of the race are the retiring Strip "The King" Weathers, the infamous Chick Hicks, and the rookie and our main protagonist Lightning McQueen. Thanks to McQueen's intervention, the race ends with a three way tie between the 3 cars which has been said to take place at the fictional LA International Speedway in one week's time. McQueen leaves in no time with Mack the truck (voiced by someone who is Pixar's good luck charm, John Ratzenberger) as he wants to get there before his competitors and is very determined to get the cup as he will then be free of the sponsorship of Rust-Eze and will be able to take The King's place as the sponsored car of Dinoco, a lucrative car team. However complications arise when Mack somehow manages to get his *ahem* backside open, letting the sleeping McQueen out and as McQueen tries to find Mack, he instead ends up in the fictional town of Radiator Springs and having caused the road to be destroyed, he must now pay the price, if he's ever going to get to LA. Now even though I did say that both films are bad, this one is only enjoyably bad in that it goes straight to the point and explores all things cars (with a few exceptions of course), but its mostly boring. The only good parts, are the races themselves and all we're really getting here, is just conversation after conversation. A film isn't all about talking you know, but considering that this was Pixar's film to celebrate their 20th anniversary, a lot of pressure was put here and honestly, they have worked hard, but not hard enough. 7/10
Cars 2
British spy car, Finn McMissile, infiltrates some oil reserves before being discovered by some "lemon" cars and is forced to flee, faking his death in the process (a not so good parody to James Bond, in my opinion). Since the first film, Lightning McQueen has been a four-time Piston Cup champion and has now called Radiator Springs, his home. He and Mater find out that there's a world championship race known as the "World Grand Prix" (unoriginal as ever) and after Italian formula race car Francesco Bernoulli challenges him in the race, McQueen, Mater and Co then decide to take part and head for Tokyo in Japan for the first of 3 races (the other two taking place in France and the UK respectively) taking place around the world. Mater somehow gets ended up with Finn and his partner Holley Shiftwell, who believe he's a spy car and explain to him that a criminal mastermind is using some kind of fuel in all the participating cars and will ignite the fuel to protect their oil reserves. And then for the rest of the film, Mater has to try and protect his friend from blowing up like the other cars, while also attempting to explain to the 2 spy cars that he isn't a spy car at all. Overall, this film sucked. The plot is very confusing to follow, spy cars are not original and if Pixar wanted to make a film about spying, they should have just made one with humans, not use one of their existing franchises. It doesn't work, all the jokes and parodies are lame and this film should have never been made. 6/10
Mater's Tall Tales
Now as I've seen all the short films for this franchise, it's only fair that I talk about them as well. Mater and the Ghostlight is one where Mater thinks that there is a ghost in Radiator Springs, and all the other cars, choose to prank him all night just to scare him. Then for the remainder of the short films, it's just Mater telling a story of something extreme that he did in the past, which somehow involve McQueen in some way and are all very similar. In my honest opinion, the short films are actually OK. They aren't as original as some of Pixar's other short films, but they are enjoyable so at least there is one good thing about this franchise, even if it's the thing that you least expect. 7/10
Overall, the whole series isn't that great. We know that Pixar want to try out some new ideas, but these new ideas, really need some more oomph. They don't have the greatness that previous films had and I don't really see the point of a sequel if people say that the first film sucked. So all I'm saying is, if you want to see these films, go ahead, but you will find much better enjoyment from Pixar's other films. Trust me. 7/10
Oh and by the way, the review of Cars 2 is my 100th film review (excluding all short films that I have reviewed also). Just thought to let you know.
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