I watched Cars 2 tonight. It was better than the first one, which contained faggoty overtones of Podunk nostalgia.
Cars 2 was less celebratory of self-imposed limitations and even called out Mater & his voice actor Larry the Cable Guy’s act of ignorance by pointing out how the audience is too busy laughing at his act to realize he’s not really a good ol’ boy like them is. In Mater’s case, his character really was that dumb. But in “Larry’s” case, he’s not.
What I liked about Cars 2 was all the stereotypes. They had Asians, Mexicans, Italians – Russians named Ivan – all down pat. They even added a “black” car – an old hooptie that sounded like a doped-up Wanda Sykes or something. It was my pleasure to watch this movie in the white-bred Appalachian community of Waynesville, North Carolina (right outside of Clyde, near Canton, for those of you who need a point of reference) and they loved that sista-car. She was funny, for a you-know-what.
Cars 2 is NOT for children. That is, unless you like exposing your children to banality and mediocrity while rednecks clap for the theater screen. “That was too much!” As Mater boosts around London with rocket boosters.
Now that I think more about Mater, maybe Cars 2 was a celebration of good-natured ignorance after all. He was instructed not to change even if he is seen as an embarrassment to the entire world: all but the Car Citizens of defunct Radiator Springs located along an obsolete desert stretch of Route 66.
Mater won the hottest bitchin’-ass car featured in the entire movie – a British spy technician luxury sports car with medium-sized car tits and a sultry voice actress who is assertive and qualified, but not quite as domineering as the weakest male character in the film.
Despite all the gender and racial stereotyping, and in spite of the product placement and references to TV commercials, I could still relate to the storytelling found in Cars 2, until I realized one thing: I could not connect, emotionally, to the characters or the plot-line. That’s because there are no fucking people.
Who drives the cars? Why do they construct buildings? Are there car beds in Car Tokyo in the Car Apartments and what about the Car Churches? Is there a Car God? There was a Car Pope in Cars 2. But not one single human being. So why do the cars speak different languages in different accents? Did the cars evolve over many hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years, to develop their own languages and regional dialects? Was there a time in Cars history when the Cars had not yet invented their parts because they had not yet even mastered stone tools?
Finally. I’m going to ask this one more time. Where were all the fucking people?
And now for Dan Whitney, before he became “Larry the Cable Guy!”
The chase scene began earlier today as the adversary hijacked an exotic, foreign car and was pursued by the detective/cop protagonist’s unmarked Dodge Charger on a Los Angeles freeway around rush hour. Things began to escalate rapidly when the stolen, high-powered vehicle began traveling on the wrong side of the highway into oncoming traffic, causing several minor accidents. The vehicle hit speeds up to 95 mph before crashing into a slower, generic sedan, triggering an extraneous explosion. The antagonist was able to escape the vehicle seemingly unharmed, prompting the pursuit to advance on-foot towards downtown.