Cars 2 Review, June 28, 2011

Cars 2 is the newest Pixar movie to hit the theaters, and the first since the overwhelming hit Toy Story 3.

As per Pixar custom, there is a short before each of their movies.  This one paid homage to that other movie Toy Story 3 with a great story.  It begins when Woody tells all the toys that it is 2:00 and Bonnie is now officially on Winter Break.  And for this break her family is going to Hawaii.  Lottso is the only character missing from this wonderful short.  While Bonnie and family are in Hawaii the toys enjoy their break and have some fun of their own.

Cars 2 opens with a familiar song from the early  '80's by the band Cars.  In fact, it made me want to find our Cars album and put the music on my phone/mp3 player.

Lightning McQueen is just getting back from winning his fourth Doc Hudson Pixton Cup.  Comments are made about Doc, who is not in this movie, presumed deceased because Paul Newman is deceased.

Mater and Lightning have fun together the day he gets back, and enjoy an old favorite of Mater's, tractor tipping on a much grander scale.

Sadly, the voice of Sally is now different and that was a bit disconcerting.  I had figured Doc was gone because they could not get his character back but maybe not since Sally was a different character.

The movie really begins when Mater, true to his friend, defends him to another racer from Italy, Francisco.  A car, Alexrod is sponsoring a World Wide Grand Prix to promote his alternative fuel.  Mater defends him so heartily that he ends up joining the race. 

Cars 2 takes place in Radiator Springs, Japan, Italy and London.  Mater joins Lightning on the race and ends up being called a spy simply due to coincidence.  The hilarity ensues as you watch Mater bumble through spydom (yes, I did make up the word).  During the race some bad things happen, and the mystery definitely involves the race as you will see during the movie.

After seeing Cars 2, I honestly can't tell you which was better, the movie or the Pixar short.  Somehow I had forgotten that Cars was a Pixar movie so the short caught me by surprise.  Seeing the characters from my favorite Pixar movie again on the big screen brought a huge smile to my face.  I absolutely loved the short.

The movie itself was action packed, hilarious, and even a bit mysterious because of the spy angle.  Can you pick out the bad guy?  I was wrong in my selection so the end surprised me.

Alex also loved this movie and can't wait for daddy to see it again with us this weekend. 

Cars 2 is a movie I can highly recommend.  Make no mistake, this is a spy movie.  It is also a Cars movie.  And a Pixar movie.  With those three components you know before even sitting down that this movie is going to be wonderful.

Also, many Disney movies now have something after the credits.  Only two families waited until the end, and we were one of them.  There is nothing after the credits here, so don't sit through all of them.  Do watch the beginning while they are doing the world tour for some fun pictures, but once those stop feel free to leave.

Cars 2 really surprised me because I didn't expect to like it very much.  I did, and Alex did.  I also found a particular scene in the movie to be very familiar to something being created at Disney's California Adventure as I write.  Yes, the familiar dirt race track in Radiator Springs now reminds me of the attraction being built at DCA.

Again, this is a movie I highly recommend for both adults and children.  And if I had to give it a rating from A (being best) to F (being worst) I think I would give it an A-.  So enjoy the movie, and then come discuss it on our forums.