Cars 2 (2012) dir. John Lasseter, Brad Lewis
Featuring voice talents of: OwenWilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, John Turturro, Bonnie Hunt

**

By Alan Bacchus

The first Cars film wasn’t that great, yet after repeated viewings at the behest of my toddler I learned to appreciate the tender message about the feelings of obsolescence and being left behind in an increasingly fast-paced world. In the first film Lightning McQueen, the pre-eminent cocky race car driver, represented the exciting yet superficial life of celebrity and the aw shucks folks of Radiator Springs, a small dead town on Route 66, represented the value of growing roots and staying true to home.

Years later, after Cars arguably became one of Pixar’s most popular ancillary profit centres (after Toy Story), there arose a need for a sequel. In this film, John Lasseter (Pixar’s co-founder/creative leader and director of this film) expands the Cars world, creating an international spy story barely even related to the previous film.

The star of this picture is actually Tow Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), the rusted tow truck/country hick who loves to tag along with the fancy-pants McQueen. After seeing the revered Italian racer Francesco Bernoulli disrespect his buddy on TV, he challenges him to an all-star race of sorts with McQueen. This takes McQueen, reluctantly bringing along Mater, to far flung international locations like Japan and England.

Lasseter derives some typical fish-out-of-water hijinks exposing the country bumpkin to the extravagance of Tokyo. While gallivanting around town, Mater accidently gets recruited by a James Bond-type spy, Finn McMissile (Michael Caine), to help stop the maniacal world domination plot of a clandestine organization.

Racing is secondary to Mater’s stumbling around with the international British spies. If you enjoy Larry the Cable Guy's self-effacing white trash humour you’ll at least tolerate this film. Lightning McQueen is barely in it – same with those delightfully warm characters of Radiator Springs, including Sally and Mack.

Even the visuals leave much to be desired. Usually with each Pixar film we can see a noticeable step forward in technical achievement in computer animation. Cars 2 is a step backward, less impactful visually than any of the recent Pixar films, and even less so than the original movie. Most of the action is presented in an over-the-top hyper reality, whereas the original film was mostly photorealistic and contained in the physical geography of the Nascar racetrack, the desert highway or the small town of Radiator Springs. The opening action scene in this film, which takes place on a freighter barge, features overly produced gunfire and explosions. Most of this film is painted with this type of brush.

As such, Cars 2 feels like just a cartoon instead of a movie. In fact, it feels like simply an expanded version of the accompanying Pixar shorts, Cars Toons – Mater’s Tall Tales, bite-sized morsels of Cars-action featuring Mater and Lighting in fun adventures.

Cars 2 is the only across-the-board uniform failure from Pixar. Still, after 15 years and 12 movies, that’s a pretty good run.

Cars 2 is available on Blu-ray from Walt Disney Home Entertainment.

Toy Story 3 (2010) dir. Lee Unkrich
Voices by: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles

****

By Alan Bacchus

Those who read this blog might know my difficulty in reviewing these CG animated films and my often overly critical buzzkiller opinions of lauded Pixar films such as Cars, Wall-E or Ratatouille, films which admittedly are technical marvels, cleverly written, but suffered from a stale cartoonish sameness which has left me desiring more from the medium.

There's nothing new about Toy Story 3, after a 10 year hiatus from the series which started this new medium of animation. After all these other successful and critically acclained Pixar films, Toy Story is still the best of this bunch, consistently maxing out the potential of the computer animation technology.

So why does Toy Story 3 feel so much more entertaining from these adult eyes, than Up or Ratatouille, or Wall-E?

For one, human characters are kept to a minimum, something in which CG is still light years behind. As such crafting a story made almost entirely from inanimate toys render animate with the same scale, detail and articulation as they are in real life is the best way to present this medium.

The beautiful photorealism is as astonishing as it was in 1995. Even after all these years and all these CG films, I still haven’t gotten used to to the dramatic eye popping effect of seeing these pristine images flash before our eyes.

The opening is a rambunctious Western style action sequence aboard a train, a sequence not unlike the opening action of a Bond film, a scene which has no real narrative purpose other than to jumpstart us on the rollercoaster ride of fun.

The core story fits in naturally with the time elapsed since Toy Story 2. Andy, the owner of the loveable group of toys which includes Buzz Lightyear and Woody, has grown up and is off to college. Woody finds himself in Andy's dufflebag ready to go to college with him while the other toys, destined for the attic, inadvertantly get shipped to the local daycare. Woody escapes the duffle bag and hopes to save his buddies from onslaught of toy-destruction that is Sunnyside Daycare. Once there, the toys find a sinister authority figure in Lotso, a disgruntled stuffed bear that rules the other toys like Stalin.

Eventually Woody engineers an exciting escape from Lotso's clutches and back into their home at Andy's house. But without Andy do the toys have a purpose or are they obsolete?

Other than the technical action sequences, witty dialogue and stunning visual design of the Toy Story world, the film resonates warmly as a metaphor for the obsolence we all feel once we are past our prime and without need or purpose.

The characters we remember from the first two films are still the same, but we never get bored of Woody and Buzz, because as voiced by Tom Hanks and Tim Allen they are as endearing characters from serialized television (the best part of serialized television).

Lotso, the obsolete teddy bear make's a fine new adversary. His flashback which shows the origin of his self-loathing is particularly emotional. It not shows how his obsolence morphed into displaced anger, but 'humanizes' the enemy and even foreshadows the fate of Woody and Buzz if they can't make a new life without Andy fulfilling.

Lotso's gang of hoodlum toys provide great support. The ambiguously gay Ken doll for instance who has an obsession with his wardrobe is marvelous, same with the grotesque and brutish mute baby doll who assumes the silent strong man role of the group.

Every character seems to be given adequate attention and relevance to the grander world of Toy Story at large. Though I have no doubt Pixar could adequately produce more of these films with almost equal entertainment value, but the final moments of this film close out the lifecycle of these characters so perfectly, it's the absolute best way to go in style.

Toy Story 3 is available on Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment

Monsters Inc. (2001) dir. Pete Docter
Voices by: John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Steve Buscemi,

***1/2

Alan Bacchus

Sure “Wall-E” is good, so is “Up”. I’m probably alone in the opinion that ‘Ratatouille’ was just OK, and that ‘Monsters Inc’ at least in my personal opinion is the best of the Pixar films.

Pete Docter’s alternate reality runs parallel to our own – a world inhabited entirely by monsters with the ability to move themselves into our own through doorways into children’s bedrooms. The monsters run a business of scaring little kids in the sleep, capturing their screams and using it as a source of energy. It sounds completely ludicrous and slightly sadistic, but Docter manages to make the world logical, consistent and magical.

Docter’s heroes James P. "Sulley" Sullivan (John Goodman) and Mike Wazowski (Billy Crystal) make a great co-protagonist pairing. Sulley is the company’s top scarer as maintained by a running scoreboard, a big burley blue beast tough on the outside but soft on the inside. His manager/business partner is a skinny runt of a monster, a giant great eyeball with arms and legs. Most of these Pixar films are essentially buddy pictures – two differing personalities clashing over the course of some kind of long journey - and on a level of physicality the shape and size of Sully and Mike make a great visual gag throughout the picture – like an animated Midnight Cowboy with Mike as Ratso Rizzo and Sully as Joe Buck.

In the Monsters' world, there’s one steadfast rule, do not bring anything over from the other side. And so when Sully accidently brings over a cute little girl from her bedroom, he and Mike find themselves on the lam and desperate not expose their rambunctious little secret. Much of the film plays out like a ‘Three Men and Baby’ dynamic as these two bumbling monsters try to coral the intrepid little baby. Along the way Sully’s nefarious rival discovers the secret and plots to use her for his own evil deeds.

For the betterment of the picture, emotional depth is kept to a minimum, with Docter concentrating on crafting the details of his doppelganger monster world. The film coasts along quite naturally on its consistently funny sight gags. Each monster is drawn with humourous detail - ie. the low level younger ladder climbing monsters with the teenaged hair cuts and braces, the CDA swat team monsters who emerge whenever there’s a security breech.

Even the little girl, who isn’t so much a character as a prop, or a maguffin for the main characters to chase after, is visual gag – a naïve innocent running amuck through tightrope situations of imminent danger. Even in these moments, the gags are about physical movements, slapstick and comedy of errors.

In the special features of new Disney Blu-Ray edition, Docter describes how he was given freedom to create 'Monsters Inc.' outside of the usual communal collaborative process under John Lasseter’s direction. As the first non-Lasseter film, “Monsters Inc.” would seem to have opened the door for filmmakers like Andrew Stanton, and Brad Bird to make even more creative films within the walls of Pixar.

“Monsters Inc” is available on Blu-Ray from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment