Cars 3 Delivers A Shocking Amount Of Emotionally Engaging, If Sometimes Formulaic, Storytelling

In many ways, Cars 3 feels like a companion piece to last summer's PIXAR movie, Finding Dory. Not only are both sequels but they arrive in an era of PIXAR's filmography so heavily dominated by sequels it's become understandable to question whether the more bold storytelling instincts the studio was relying on for its first 15 years of existence have escaped them (though Inside Out is the kind of masterpiece demonstrating how good this studio can be when it really swings for the fences). Cars 3, even moreso than Finding Dory (whose predecessor never really spawned much in the way of merchandise) is mostly a gamble to create toys and assorted paraphernalia that these Cars movies have become most noteworthy for.



Like Finding Dory though, I was surprised to find there's more underneath the hood on Cars 3 than expected. It's overly toyetic tendencies are inescapable for sure and it's definitely one of the weaker PIXAR films, but shockingly, Cars 3 manages to be a satisfying movie and a surprisingly emotionally engaging one at that. The main hook for this entry in the Cars series is that the folks at PIXAR have decided to apply the greater emphasis on pathos mode of storytelling that have made their best features (Up, Inside Out, Ratatouille, WALL-E, etc.) work so well. While it sounds like a poor fit to apply more introspective tendencies to a franchise responsible for more fart and pee gags than all other PIXAR movies combined, Cars 3 manages to utilize a more thoughtful storytelling approach quite well.

Time is taking its wear on Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), who returns to the forefront of the Cars franchise after handing over leading man duties to Mater (Larry The Cable Guy) in PIXAR's artistic nadir Cars 2. A whole bunch of newer and younger racecars, most notably Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), are coming onto the racing scene and leaving Lighting and all the other older racers in the dust. After trying to one-up Jackson Storm in a pivotal race, Lightning accidentally gets into a crash that leaves both his body and spirit bruised badly, especially as memories of his deceased mentor Doc Hudson (Paul Newman) telling him how younger racers forced him out of the sport he loved so much back in the day.

The prospect of that same fate befalling himself sends Lightning McQueen onto a trek to prove that he's still got it and can compete with newer high-tech racers. In order to get himself back into shape, he manages to acquire the services of perky trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), a lady who's gonna have to work overtime to get this older racer back into peak shape. From there, various racing shenanigans ensue, morals get dished out and a wide variety of new cars (including two old-timers played by Chris Cooper and Character Actress Margo Martindale) show up to ensure that the inevitable Cars 3 toyline is chock full of new characters for parents to buy for their kids.

Amidst those new characters is the movies biggest weak link by far, the character of Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), a one-note pastiche of past racecar antagonists like Chick Hicks and Francesco Bernouli who I kept expecting to have some kind of twist or wrinkle in his backstory to lend him some last-minute depth but he ends up just being an overly shallow baddie for Lightning to compete against. In the more introspective tone of Cars 3, he just doesn't fit in here at all and the way Storm and the other younger racers are portrayed as thinly sketched villains feels like it doesn't belong in a motion picture that otherwise is pretty good at dishing out nuance and substance.

Otherwise though, going for a more serious approach to its story suits Cars 3 quite well, especially since it weaves in the passing of Paul Newman, the voice of Doc Hudson, as a key component of its story. The shadow of Newman and his character from the first Cars looms large over the feature and Cars 3 handles that loss really well, it never once feels like they're exploiting the passing of a legendary actor in order to get cheap pathos into the movie. Instead, they use his passing as a springboard for Lightning to question his place in the racing world and some nicely-handled quite scenes reliant on character-oriented dialogue. A scene where Lightning visits an extremely important garage in Doc Hudson's hometown is a prime example of this, providing a classic PIXAR tearjerker moment in such a well-executed emotional sequence.

Director Brian Fee incorporates this newer more serious tone into the Cars universe very nicely and kudos to him and the writers and other creative personnel on this project for trying to do something different from past Cars adventures in a positive way (as opposed to Cars 2 which went away from the first one in not so fun overly busy ways). The voice actors manage to rise to this newer tonal aesthetic Fee is going for with similar levels of success with Cristela Alonzo turning in a tremendous vocal turn as franchise newbie Cruz Ramirez who turns out to be a showcase for how Alonzo has a good grasp on both comic timing and providing emotionally resonant voice work. In the lead role, Owen Wilson handles the prospect of a more somber Lightning McQueen with grace and Larry The Cable Guy turns in more restrained, and by proxy moderately humorous, work as Mater compared to Cars 2.

Though I wish PIXAR would start trying out different styles of animation in their backgrounds in their movies beyond just "Look how real we made everything look!" (there's other visual aesthetics out there besides just realism y'know), the computer animation in Cars 3 is also splendid looking and I do want to give a shoutout, while we're talking about visuals to some thoughtful camerawork in certain moments (like Jackson Storm's introduction) that lend a real sense of pizzazz to this movie which actually has a nice habit of surprising you with some really attentive details like. Cars 3 leans too heavily on more formulaic narrative elements both in its plot points and characters (namely a poorly realized antagonist) but it ended up surprising me in just how entertaining and emotionally engaging it was. Despite the lackluster nature of Cars 2, I'd say give the shockingly pretty good Cars 3 a test drive.