Cast: Voices of Owen Wilson, Cristela Alonzo, Armie Hammer, Larry the Cable Guy, Bonnie Hunt, Nathan Fillion, Kerry Washington and Lea DeLaria.
Storyline: Tech-savvy rookie racers are threatening to put Lightning McQueen in retirement
In a bid to get the Cars franchise back on track (pun intended) Pixar Animation Studios have come out with a new film in the instalment six years after its disastrous second part. Their 2017 film take a more emotional approach to its story hoping to tug those heartstrings all the way to box office success. But has it worked?
After tackling espionage and travelling the world in the second part, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) has now become a veteran on the racetrack winning every season. Soon his age catches up to him when rookies like Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer) equipped with sophisticated technology zoom past at speeds McQueen can’t match. He’s losing his legacy with each loss. A new sponsor the smooth-talking Mr Sterling (Nathan Fillion) wants McQueen to retire and sell his image as a brand but the racer is intent on choosing his own way out. They strike a bet, if McQueen wins the Florida 500 race, he decides his own terms of retirement but if he loses, Sterling gets to put his face on every kind of product out there. Eventually McQueen is saddled with the overly enthusiastic trainer, Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) to get him back in shape.
There’s a lot happening in Cars 3 : we’ve got McQueen dealing with getting old and rusty. There’s a storyline where he misses his mentor Doc Hudson (the late Paul Newman whose unused recordings were incorporated in flashbacks). Then, there’s the rather adult concept of becoming stagnant if you’re not willing to change with the times. Plus, Ramirez’s own arc of her unrequited dream to become a racer. It takes a long time for Cars 3 to be able pull in the viewer with the whole film and every supporting character revolves around McQueen. Take for instance, Storm’s character who only exists to annoy the protagonist.
But when Cars 3 gets going in the latter half of the film, it really does burn rubber. The film which at first appears to be focused on McQueen’s comeback takes a turn for the better with him realising his new-found purpose. And in a very clever move, Pixar adds in a girl empowerment angle to the mix. They really did pull out all the stops to make this film successful, but thankfully Cars 3 never emotionally manipulates its viewers. The film is a tad long in getting to its point, and the jokes are far and few in between. For what it’s worth, parents accompanying their kids won’t be bored. It’s an adequate family friendly film bound to resonate with its audience.
(The article first appeared in The Hindu CinemaPlus.)