It is Speed
The last outing for the Cars franchise was a strange film where Mater was the main character and Lightning Mcqueen was off to the side…..and Mater was a spy? All of Cars 2 has been put aside this time for a very Lightning Mcqueen centred adventure which is filled with Toy Story 3 style moments of nostalgia and the best thing about the Cars franchise, the racing!
Cars 3 follows Lightning McQueen as a new racer, Jackson Storm, begins to race against McQueen. Jackson Storm is a new racer who is more technologically advanced than McQueen, he can race around a track perfectly thanks to all of the abilities his car has. These advances in technology that Storm has means that McQueen starts losing to Storm and other new racers until one race where McQueen crashes and is almost forced into retirement. McQueen’s sponsor, Rusteez, is bought out by a new owner who gives McQueen one last race to prove himself and McQueen, with his new trainer Cruz Ramirez, set off to train and beat Jackson Storm.
The film isn’t like the second Cars and is more along the lines of the original Cars except instead of you watching Lightning McQueen learn how to race, like you did in Cars, you are instead watching him pour his heart and soul into learning how to be better and overcome all of the obstacles in his path. This makes the film have an entertaining and inspirational feel to it as you find yourself rooting for McQueen, something that you surprisingly don’t get to do enough in the other Cars films. You feel sad when McQueen is on the verge of giving up, you feel mad when people are trying to stop him from racing and when he finally gets his moment, you feel excited and amped up when you watch him race his heart out.
All of this spirit that the film gives you from it’s leading character is supported by a great new cast of character, a wonderful score by Randy Newman and the amazing visuals delivered by the team at Pixar. I’ve always thought that the Cars world was weird and its one of the lower tier Pixar series but the first Cars had fantastic scenery scenes when it first came out and then Cars 2 had really good shots showing lots of details of cities. Cars 3, however, tops them all with some of the most beautifully animated environments I’ve seen from a Pixar film or any other animated film. One of the reasons why you want to watch McQueen race in this film is because the visuals of the smoke coming from the cars and the gravel on the ground vibrating from the power of the cars is so phenomenally exciting and carefully detailed that it just gets you in the mood for the event. From the first race in the film to the last, Cars 3 manages to be a visually pleasing racing film.
My only gripe with the film is the ending, it’s an ending that you can see from pretty far away. While watching the film I didn’t like the ending all too much but now going over it I’ve learnt to appreciate it a little. It all comes back to Lightning McQueen and how this film made me realise that he is quite a good character. I’m a Toy Story guy so I get emotional over that, Cars came out just a little too late for me to have a really good connection to Lightning McQueen, but what they do for him in this film is similar to what they do for Woody and Buzz and the rest of the gang in Toy Story 3. It’s a final show for them and the ending makes you realise how important that character actually was. Cars franchise has never been perfect but its core character of Lightning McQueen is one that kids love and that is all Cars has to be. Cars 3 takes Lightning McQueen, your favourite racer, gives him the story and spotlight he deserves and most of all makes you love him that little bit more. Well done Cars on redeeming yourself, breaking through the racing field and doing what’s needed to win.