Cars 2

Pixar may be the all-knowing virtuoso of children's animation, but in bringing motor vehicles to life, they have met their match. The first Cars was a satisfactory comical spin around the racetrack, but it only ever warranted itself as a one-off: The sequel was a car crash waiting to happen.  

Race car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) enjoyed his character arc last time, so in Cars 2, the limelight is shifted to rusting-old-tow-truck-of-a-pal Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). As McQueen enters the newly inaugurated World Grand Prix, he invites Mater along for the ride, soon regretting the decision, as the Radiator Springs bumpkin shows him up by guzzling a bowlful of wasabi and cocking up his race on the first leg of the tour. You might deduce the consequences: McQueen denounces his buddy as a liability, and the tow truck skulks off feeling unloved before his pal realizes he should love Mater for who he is ... Pass the bucket, will you?   

Woven into this sappy storyline is a barefaced James Bond send-up - suave Aston Martin Finn McMissile (Michael Caine's is a phoned-in performance if ever there was one) and co-agent Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) seeking out the villains behind a scheme to sabotage the Grand Prix in order to secure their stake in an untapped oil reserve. Mistaken for a secret agent, Mater is dragged into the chaos, to what is meant to be hilarious effect. It isn't.

The whole spy angle is stretched to breaking point by the time the opening credits have started. Not only is the Bond parody well-worn by now, Caine's character doesn't work as a car. You try making a zip-lining Aston Martin look graceful; it can't be done. And Cars 2's dilemma runs far deeper than that.

In animals, toys, robots and monsters, there are humanistic qualities to bring out, but with cars, short of turning them into Transformers, things are altogether trickier. Are their hands wheels? If so, what's a door? Are their brains engines? If so, what happens when an engine conks out? How can a car have parents? What's inside one of these cars, seats for humans? And how is it possible for a car to die (which in Cars 2, they do)? Arghh, the ambiguity, the unending ambiguity!

Then we come to the characters. In the making of Cars 2, there's been some gross negligence in coming up with personalities. Italian F1 car Francesco Bernoulli (John Turturro) seeps vainglorious idiocy. Professor Z (Thomas Kretschmann) is an evil bemonocled German crony. Even Wilson's Lightning McQueen is rather a bore, a picture of a clean-cut American good guy who's bound to win - physically and morally - come the end of the day. By the third time he's pulled his "Ka-chow!" catchphrase, you'll want to bash in his grill of a mouth with a sledgehammer.

For younger children, the far-fetched plot with its baffling amount of bad guys and self-righteous environmentalism isn't likely to trigger tremulous excitement. Parents don't have much to look forward to, either. Quips like "Is the Popemobile Catholic?" and a fantastic play on cow-tipping are few and far between. For the main part, Cars 2 is predictable, listless and simply not funny. Pixar is better than that.

The only voice work to earn real kudos is that of Larry the Cable Guy. His husky hick tones actually sound like they're coming from Mater, and he's the only big character for whom an image of the actor stood in the sound booth doesn't keep popping up into your head. If kids go for anything in Cars 2, Mater will be it - the character has already found durability in its own spin-off TV show, after all.

Cars 2 is a rare example of Pixar making a severe boo-boo, and it's made all the more surprising as director and chief creative officer John Lasseter had the reins for this one. Let's hope Lasseter's NASCAR obsession momentarily blurred his senses, rather than it being a case of bigwigs concluding another Cars would prove most lucrative on the merchandizing front.

Of all the Pixar films that deserved a sequel, Cars was at the bottom of the pile. The reality is, it never had the legs (or should that be wheels?). As for any motions toward a third Cars, scrap them.

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com