Review: CARS 3

On Top Of The Track!

2.5 Happy stars!

(and 4 stars to the short film LOU attached to the beginning!)

Mini Review:

The racing cars are back, ready to make you eat dirt, whether they are on the Piston 51 lap race or smart talking each other. The jokes could be funnier, but you cannot but smile at ‘Your blinker is on’ as you see Lightning McQueen, Mater and the other cars you have seen before see yet another road bump… Will number 95 get his mojo back?

Main Review:

Is this the end to Lightning McQueen’s career as a racing ace? There are nasty looking next gen cars like Jackson Storm on the track slowly pushing out the racers you have seen in this really sweet Disney franchise. Jackson Storm has been racing on the simulator and the racing reporter Natalie Certain who says, ‘Numbers are everything’ and predict to the nearest per cent who will win the race, predicts that the way Jackson Storm’s numbers are, there is a 96 per cent chance that he will win, compared to the one percent chance of Lightning McQueen making it at the race if at all.

With Ace losing his confidence at losing not just to Jackson Storm but losing hope as he sees all his friends retire, what is to become of the franchise? As audience you begin to pray that he really pushes himself and learns to win again. His newly appointed trainer Cruz tries her best. But Lightning McQueen listen to anyone else but his own voice? Will he change his ways or is he too set in his thinking…

This movie seemed to have sort of petered off the track in the sequel and then most of us wrote it off as meant for little kids. With Cars 3, Disney is back, and how! Personally speaking the movie is simply heartwarming. Maybe because most adults can identify with the theme of exhaustion at work, losing inspiration, this movie comes very close to whatever it is that grown ups are battling. And the kids will continue to find humor in the cuteness of the cars. Even the demolition derby is fun watch, and so is the training on the beach.

I actually stood up to clap to the clever use of Bruce Springsteen’s Glory Days and the slide guitar at the pub. That quietly slipped in the the cleverest thing one has seen in the ‘Cars’ movies.

Go watch it. This one film is meant for kids, but who knows, the grown ups might find lots and lots of inspiration here as well. And one more thing. This film opens during Father’s Day weekend, and has a lovely little short attached to the beginning of the film. It is everything you would expect from a Pixar short. The tears in my eyes are preventing me from saying more, but watch LOU, the short. You’ll find heaps to love in the Lost And Found box too…