Re: Rate The Last Movie You Watched.
Cars 2 - 6/10. Easily the weakest of the Pixar movies to date. I'm not a hater of the original, but this one really lacked any heart.
I have to say I left feeling weird - I loved the look, the sound and the designs. It's a beautifully animated movie. And it really is a fun plot, especially if you like Bond movies. Let's face it, Bond movies aren't great social cinema - they're just supposed to be fun. Lots of chases, lots of 'stunts', lots of cool gadgets, lots of explosions. Kids will enjoy the basic escapism.
But the dialog from all the old characters - McQueen, Sarge, Sally, etc. etc. etc. was flat and unemotional, as if they were reading it - badly. The spark was from the new characters, especially Francesco. In fact, whenever he was on screen, you could see easily tell the difference in Tuturro's voice acting and everyone else.
This is also a Mater movie, not a McQueen movie, which is not such a bad idea. But let's be honest, Larry the Cable Guy is not a great actor. One liners he delivers well, but when he's expected to actually string together many sentences of dialog and add appropriate emotion, things don't work so well.
In the end though, I think it's because this is the first (and so far only) Pixar movie that was not created from a quirky idea on the back of a napkin, but purely as a money making endeavor. Instead of some creative genius coming in and saying "hey, I got this really cool idea, what do you think?", some marketing dude said "hey, Cars makes us a ton of money, make a sequel!" And like Jar-Jar and the Ewoks, whenever you force something into a movie purely for it's economic potential, it lacks heart.
