Once more around the track
… for old times’ sake
LIGHTNING McQueen’s third time around the track is showing signs that Disney/Pixar’s reliable Cars franchise may, after two popular and original instalments in the series of animated tales about talking cars, finally be starting to run out of gas.
To be sure, Cars 3, which centres on a cocky race car named Lightning (voice of Owen Wilson) and his fears of obsolescence in the face of more high-tech competition, still has enough fuel in the tank to drive the story across the finish line. But like Lightning himself, who roared into the hearts of vroom-vrooming children and their Nascartolerant parents 11 years ago, there isn’t quite as much pep to the film’s narrative engine on this trip.
Cars 3 opens with Lightning losing to a new, state-of-theart rival called Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), a hot shot who trains on a video-game-style simulator and boasts a host of technical improvements that give him an edge over everyone else in the Piston Cup circuit. The fictional racing series includes appearances, on-and off-track, by such real-life personalities as former drivers Darrell Waltrip, Jeff Gordon and Richard Petty (playing Darrell Cartrip, Jeff Gorvette and a character known as the King).
The film’s puns, once clever, are sometimes groaningly forced here.
Many beloved characters from the earlier films return, including vehicles played by voice actors who have since died. Paul Newman – as Lightning’s late mentor, Doc Hudson, appearing in flashbacks – delivers lines that were recorded before the actor died in 2008. So, too, does Tom Magliozzi, who, with his brother and fellow Car Talk host Ray, plays one half of Lightning’s sibling corporate sponsors, Rusty and Dusty. Ageing hippie VW bus Fillmore (originally voiced by comedian George Carlin) has been played by Lloyd Sherr since the second film.
But these reminders of time’s relentless passage are not the real reason that Cars 3 feels like it may be time for a trade-in.
Nor is it that these reminders are underscored by a plot that explicitly addresses letting go of the past and the appearance of several oldtimer car characters, notably an ancient pick-up truck named Smokey (Chris Cooper), who becomes Lightning’s new trainer, offering the advice that the old ways are the best ways.
Rather, it is the film’s reliance on the underdogvictory formula that feels stale. Okay, there’s a little kink in the plot where Lightning – always a bit of an egoist, despite receiving comeuppance in the earlier films – behaves in a manner that genuinely surprises, in the way he puts his needs behind those of an aspiring race car (Cristela Alonzo), who never achieved the success that he did.
That twist offers a nice lesson about selfless gestures, but it serves only to juice up the plot before Cars 3 settles back into a well-worn groove on the way to the chequered flag.
Jackson Storm may be the souped-up face of the future, but the movie feels more like a quiet ramble down memory lane. – The Washington Post ELLA Brown (Jessica Brown Findlay) is a beautifully quirky young woman who dreams of writing and illustrating a successful children’s book.
Despite her abandonment as a child, all-consuming obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), the unfulfilled dream, her awful boss at the library and her paralysing fear of flora and fauna, Bella is down but not out.
She has a spark, an edge, a talent and a voice that we can feel from the get-go.
This Beautiful Fantastic is a cute contemporary fairy tale which sees the most unlikely friendships between interesting characters, but the lack of focus, uneven pacing and glaring plot holes keep the film from its true potential.
The blockbuster movie season is in full swing with Pirates of the Caribbean 5, Wonder Woman, The Mummy, Baywatch and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 all populating the cinema.
This Beautiful Fantastic could have been great counterprogramming, but director and screenwriter Simon Aboud can’t decide who the focus of the film should be.
He then establishes several relationships but he doesn’t give enough depth for any of them to give the audience a chance to connect with them on an emotional level.
All the actors are really good and believable, especially Bella and Billy (Jeremy Irvine), who are also both attractive people even for movie standards.
The pace of the film is also strange.
We never get an explanation as to where Bella’s phobia stems from.
She also suffers from OCD, but through the power of love she is able to overcome it.
I don’t have a degree in psychology, but I did take psychology subjects in my undergraduate years, and that’s not how anxiety disorders work.
You don’t wake up one day and all of a sudden you are cured. The glaring plot holes also take you out of the film.
For example, there is a scene where Bella and Billy plan to go on a date but don’t exchange numbers.
Who sets up to meet someone without taking their number?
This then is used as a reason for him missing their date.
This could have been such a breath of fresh air to combat all the noise from the other big blockbuster films.
Aboud’s lazy screenwriting and spotty directing, however, leaves the film uneven and somewhat of a let-down.