Mater's Tall Tales

Formulaic but awesome fun for kids.

This short collection expands the Cars universe in a very creative way by presenting many different cinematic genres and car culture in an entertaining way. It uses up clichés and stereotypes perfectly to parody. The show operates with huge amount of self reflective jokes as well. Every episode feels authentic and never becomes flat or boring. It's great to see how Mater shine as a main character in this series. The only problem is, there aren't many part as fans would hope but it is always better to make less and make those count instead of doing too much of something.

Overall it's a small but great addition to the Cars franchise. Definietly worth checking out if you have seen the movies already.

My 4 year old loved this DVD. Perhaps even more than the Cars movie itself. It's far more fast-paced and slapstick than the full movie, that's for sure, and the main character switches from Lightning McQueen (not played by Owen Wilson here) to his Cars sidekick Mater.

The lovable truck tells all kind of far fetched stories which had my son laughing along all the way, each one adding the twist when McQueen said he didn't believe the story he would get dragged into the fantasy by Mater who would play mind-games with McQueen and make him think he was there when it happened. That could have got repetitive, but my son loved it every time, especially when he knew it was coming towards the end of these shorts.

Great DVD, and gives good hope that the upcoming Cars II will be a lot more fun than the first one. Not that it was a bad film, but at times it was incredibly slow for a children's movie. This is a wonderful purchase.

These short films are essentially a bridge between the first 'Cars' film and the second. In fact you could say that each short film is a concise analogy of the relationship between the two Cars films - they start out in slow-paced Radiator Springs and then branch out into far-fetched adventures. I would highly recommend watching these before watching Cars 2, they make the shift in tone much less jarring. Also the idea that Mater is always telling 'tall tales' becomes relevant in the second film.

I would not say that these are better than the two feature-length films, but they do suit their function more appropriately. The first film had good characterization, but for a children's cartoon there was not much action. The second film had a lot of action, but with less interest in the characters.

These are only intended as fun little sketches, and as such they work superbly. I had more laughs per minute than the feature films, with the highlight being a hilarious reference to 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'

As a kid I didn't even notice that the episodes followed a similar formula, instead I laughed at Mater and the shenanigans he got into and how McQueen was there suddenly. I loved this as a kid but now that I'm older, it doesn't click the same way anymore. Set your expectations a bit lower when seeing this one.

As long as you set your expectations a bit lower, you'll enjoy these very short CGI films. I say set your standards lower because the cartoons are very, very short...and they follow the same formula in each and every one. Each consists of Mater (one of the main characters in the full-length film "Cars") telling what sound like wild fibs. And, each time his friend McQueen says he doesn't believe the story...only to then get confirmation that the story WAS true and that McQueen himself was a witness--though he somehow forgot. While the cartoons are quite trivial, they are gorgeous--with some of the nicest CGI I have seen. As a result, they hold up well on the new DVD "Mater's Tall Tales"--a compilation of all of these short films. Each short is only about 4-5 minutes in length and kids will love 'em. Adults will enjoy them for a while--until they notice that each short is pretty much the same pattern being repeated again and again.