With yet another feather in their box office victory cap, I thought it might be interesting to look back on PIXAR's only critical and financial miss. You know which one I'm talking about....the entity known as Cars 2. Disagreements run rampant across the internet, but amazingly, even amidst the landscape of the world wide web, it's pretty much treated as a fact by everybody that Cars 2 is the worst feature created by PIXAR. That in and of itself is a legitimate achievement, I've never seen this sort of unity in the feral realm of the internet.
The main element that brings Cars 2 down as a feature film is pretty simply, truth be told; like its predecessor, the protagonist that the audience goes on a nearly two hour journey with is a bust. But at least Lightning McQueen had a touching climax at the big race, whereas Mater has...truthfully, nothing of note to talk about. Looking at the other titles PIXAR has behind, they've had lead characters that seem, in theory, to be far more prone to failure than Larry The Cable Guys tow truck. A primarily mute robot? A rat who wants to cook? A paranoid fish father?
However, the likes of Remy and WALL-E excelled as leads because the audience was given reasons to like them. Maybe their personality was just innately likable, or in the case of Marlin and Carl Fredrickson, they had a tragic backstory that made us stick with them in their darkest hours. Maters entire conceit as a character was to be a lovable piece of comic relief in the first Cars, and with him having a different purpose in the story of Cars 2 (he needs to not only be the lead, but also be capable enough in combative situations to be mistaken for a spy), it would take tremendous storytelling skill to bring him into this new realm of character development.
A daunting task, to be certain, but not one that's impossible. Just look at how Han Solo progressed over just the first Star Wars movie from a guy who shot Greedo (first, I might add) with no hesitation to someone who was willing to come back and help out his new friends take out the Death Star. Why, arcs that have an individual grow and change are why we can love certain characters. Alas, Maters personality changes in Cars 2 are for the worse, making him more irritating than he was in the original film for the purpose of....comedy, I guess?
Notable gags stemming from Maters heightened hyperactivity include him publicly urinating (or the vehicle equivalent to such) and eating a large amount of wasabi. There's really not a ton of comedic gold to be found in his new-found character traits is what I'm trying to say, and needless to say, there's nothing emotionally resonant on the level of the opening of Up coming from Mater getting into slapstick shenanigans across various international countries.
Frankly, because Mater is such a crucial part of Cars 2, there's really no chance for the rest of the movie to spread its wings and become anything special. Lightning McQueen and other Radiator Springs residents are brushed to the side in favor of making sure Mater gets as much screentime as humanely possible. New entries into the cast (including Michael Caine as Finn McMissle, an Aston Martin that's a super spy) leave as much of an impact as a pebble hitting your bumper. As a whole, Cars 2 is the kind of mess that that seems so bizarrely out of place in the context of their entire library of cinematic accomplishments. I guess this is just one film that they just couldn't, how do you say it, git 'er done right?
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