CARS II (2011)

Pixar in the 2010's released quite a mix of bad, boring, and bland that kicked off with a misguided TOY STORY Made-for-TV plot and has been followed by endless meandering sequels (all wildly successful) and original IPs as creative as Dreamworks B team efforts wearing visual polish and not much more (these, not always). Sometimes Pixar films are just boring and encourage you to drop it early, like BRAVE, and spare your soul if you don't. Sometimes they're stale iron striking, like INCREDIBLES II (wildly, ridiculously successful). sometimes they're misguided attempts at recapturing the magic of pixar's golden age, like INSIDE OUT (successful, actually, and now even shit has a sequel). While i would call all of these named films bad, i wouldn't call them incompetent... but there is one. One film so unbelievably stupid and incoherent that it destroys any chance for the viewer to be bored by delivering unto them an onslaught of writer's room embarrassment so thoroughly entertaining you can't help but see it all the way through.

CARS II is unbelievable. It is everything i just described and then some. Viewing it would make Walt start stabbing people. It's THE piece of shit to marvel at. I honestly don't even know where to start. How about the posters commonly featuring Lightning McQueen up in front with Larry the cable car in the background? very misleading--this isn't a movie about McQueen. This is the fucking Tow Mater show, and McQueen's just living in it. And let me tell you, John Lasseter LOVES Tow Mater. Peek at his credited films on LETTERBOXD and you'll found he's directed no less than eight short films starring the rusted redneck (let's not even talk about how he's credited for more 'CARS' films than any other IP, which is enormously sad). Tow Mater finds himself directly in the spotlight for CARS II following his presence in the former film as a decent character for Owen Wilson to bounce off of. If I were to describe Mater's personality in CARS, it'd be "redneck wise"--he isn't horribly stupid or anything. He's just a simple tow truck that likes simple things, that takes it easy... but takes it. He can trust words too easily. He can be dense, but not devastatingly so.

i would describe Mater in CARS II as devastatingly dense. Larry goes far beyond simple incompetence and into the realm of complete fucking idiot who makes an embarrassment out of himself and his friends on the regular. He taps on the glass. He eats a gallon of wasabi and quenches himself on a public fountain. He calls up a talk show to defend McQueen putting the Queen's judgment of character into question. He wets himself live (noo, the main villain did it actually--okay, but why?). The best part about Mater is his incredibly strange bond with McQueen, the two readily calling each other best friends, other characters commenting on their best friendship. Mater has never failed to leave Lightning McQueen's cock unsucked--that's what the stakes are. There's a point in the film where Lightning makes it clear he's going to go out to dinner with his gf to a disappointed best friend (which makes the music shift from stock ringtone happy jingle to stock ringtone sad piano). Mater then shows up at Lightning and Sally's dinner as their waiter, because Mater needs to be on screen as much as vehicularly possible. but the funniest part about this 'best friends' deal Lightning bringing along his Nebraskan side piece over to Japan, promoting him to pit chief; Mater proceeds to fuck Lightning over midway by chasing after some fine pipe and spouting hick nonsense into the mic, costing McQueen the race. He's justifiably upset. Mater has no idea what a dumbass he's been, gets chewed out, and the film shifts to a sad scene in a sad stone--CARS II is 100% a look through his horrible lights.

More on Mater--how could there not be? He's the bumbling protagonist after all. Throughout CARS II, Larry runs his voice through a cheese grater within the context of super spy antics. A funny cartoon redneck working alongside posh British agents isn't a terrible hook, but it's agonizing when everything he does is so frustratingly stupid, where he has to spout a braindead one liner every other moment (to which other cars usually don't even dignify with a response). Listening to this guy for nearly two hours is a nightmare in and of itself, and i could regularly find my brain protectively shutting itself down during his longer spiels. Interestingly though, Mater ends up going into a dream state where he's confronted with all the many various ways he's embarrassed himself and McQueen, coming to a realization that he's persistently made a horrible fool of himself and his friends. This was surprising character development for a truck I'd written off as to be worshiped throughout. What I could have never predicted was for the film to give Mater this development, and then completely undo it. Seriously, Lightning comes around at the end and vehemently defends Mater's idiotic actions, enabling his best friend's behavior arguing of others being the problem. The next scene cuts to Mater being an obnoxious American in front of silent soldiers with McQueen completely down for it. Bravo Lasseter--I have never seen a movie where character development is teased and flipped on its roof.

This isn't even Pixar's first spy movie--THE INCREDIBLES wore the aesthetic well. CARS II... it's just too fucking funny to see vehicles popping grappling hooks and four wheel driving up oil rigs or blasting machine guns from under hoods. What does firing even feel like to them? There's even a weirder part where one car operates a gun attached to a boat (which is also alive). So, does the boat feel it? Why do guns even exist in this world? The pope car travels around with protective glass so I guess it's safe to say there's been long range attempts on Vatican lives. But are guns honestly what comes to mind when you think of cars fighting each other? For the record, CARS III actually does feature a demolition derby. Perhaps the funniest aspect of these characters being cars is that the very nature of them being automobiles allows for rather gruesome deaths and depictions of violence under the big G rating. Car corpses are regularly seen--sometimes mere moments after them living, breathing, driving. So many on-screen deaths... drownings... explosions... crushings... it's comical. They're fucking cars.

And it's impossible to not constantly be thinking about how cars killing cars cuz the movie just constantly creates questions. Pope car... car religion... car crusades? Queen elizabeth car... car monarchy? CARS had pretty simple environments for its length--a small town off route 66 and some NSACAR stadiums. We've got the whole goddamn world here in CARS II, from Japan to Italy to the UK. Massive world architecture perfectly resembles our real world but to what purpose? It's hilarious when watching to notice how gargantuan all these rooms are that the cars inhabit and drive around in. But to what point? why did these cars build a 99% exact replica of our world but bigger? why is CARS II legitimately just earth but populated by these fucking things? The environmental ramifications have to be outright devastating, and I'm not even pulling that from my ass considering half the plot of this surrealist spy nightmare revolves around alternative fuel.

Despite ridiculous ass spy shenanigans, both CARS and its sequel do still feature racing. What I found interesting while watching CARS II is how different "racing" is. With its predecessor, every race has a unique gimmick going for it--the first is the tablesetter, and Lightning performs ridiculous stunts like leaping off of wrecked cars. More races follow--one to make Lightning look like a fool, one to train him to take things slow... and the finale puts all he's learned against just two other cars. I don't really give a shit about racing, but I followed everything going on there. with CARS II, the races are just... races, really? Lightning speeds off against specifically one other competitor while the rest are nameless, and I kind of don't give a shit who's winning or what's happening. There's tons of long shots of the cars just zipping around different city arenas and these parts might honestly be as bad as Tow Mater monologues for how long they go.

I just can't stop thinking about Tow fucking Mater. This movie worships the truck. He gets himself added to the radiator springs sign at the end. He nets a super spy girlfriend, even (she is laughably excluded from the CARS III cast). The line she utters when announcing their blossoming relationship made me pause and reel. Mater gets rockets added to his trunk. He gets knighted by the Queen. He gets it all. Tow Mater fucking wins. And he, clinger obsessive, just fucking loves McQueen, his best friend. Their torterous display of friendship is somehow more agonizing than Ralph and Vanellope's from the second Wreck-it film, and that's a feat. Hey, guess what Mater's favorite Metallica album is?

Let's be clear if I haven't been already: CARS II is hilariously entertaining. I can't imagine why you'd ever want to turn this pile-up off, captivating as it is, and i'm not being sarcastic. It is easily the most incompetent high budget animated film ever produced and I would be completely embarrassed to have my name anywhere on the credits for this gruesome nightmare. Well, unless you were involved with that inflatable bouncy house thing the villain crushes during his escape. You're good. The writing is professionally braindead. The cinematography frames everything like a sitcom because you can't have a goddamn side profile shot of these freaks. CARS II is John Lasseter's magnum fucking opus and final directing effort for his studio, lol.

Watch this Pixar kusoge with friends for a great time, and disregard the taste and recommendations from anyone who cannot appreciate its brilliance. Get 'er done, bitch.