I definitely don’t think Cars 2 deserved a 98 or anything. But, seriously, I believe 30 something is way too low. I personally found Cars 2 much more entertaining, and even a better movie(yes, I said that. And I mean it). I understand that many people found Mater out of character and annoying, but I personally didn’t pick up on that at all.
I’ll watch it in exactly one weak. I’ll see what’s the problem.
Okay. If you’re still here( 
) explain it to me, please.
Well, I narrowed it down to three reasons why people didn’t like Cars 2. I’ll explain them very briefly.
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The whole Mater factor. I can understand why people don’t like him since they don’t prefer that Larry the Cable Guy “brand” of humor. Due to him getting so much screentime, it took some of the focus and the developement of some of the new characters like Francesco and Professor Zundapp. They could of cut down on the spy plot a little bit and focused on a McQueen/Francesco rivalry. I did find myself laughing at a couple of his jokes and rooting for him by the end. I don’t hate Mater but when he’s on screen for most of the movie you get tired of him quickly and want to see someone else.
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Cars 2’s runtime. When I walked out of the movie I said to myself it was the fastest two hours I’ve ever sat through. I think some of this was from the first half where it was sloppy and way to fast to my liking. As soon as they arrived in Italy, the film started to slow down a little bit and started to get more interesting. I think they could of added another 15-20 minutes to the film with another race or something. I can understand that families wouldn’t want to sit through a Pixar movie that was more than two hours long. The reason I ask for more time on the racing sequences was because they felt short. Yeah the spy plot is the main focus but I thought that McQueen and the Radiator Springs gang needed some more screentime.
3)It Lacked that certain heartfelt moment. I know some critics have said that Cars 2 didn’t have some heartfelt drama to it like the recent Pixar movies had. To me, it was nice to see them go a different route with an fun action summer comedy. When I walked into the movie I knew it wasn’t going to be another TS3, Up or Wall-E as far as they go with heartfelt drama. I’m not saying you can’t have a good movie with great visuals but you gotta have solid storywork to back it up with. There were a couple scenes where I thought it was kinda heartfelt where [spoil]Mater has that dream[/spoil] and where [spoil]Mater and Lightning get into the argument after the Tokoyo race.[/spoil]
I did like Cars 2, but I found it a bit disappointing in a way. I’m not sure yet if Dreamworks has done a better job then Pixar this year. Hopefully when Puss in Boots comes out I can judge for myself. Funny thing about DW’s as I bring it up. After How to Train Your Dragon came out, I was starting to like Dreamworks a little bit but after looking at their upcoming slate, my liking of them kinda dropped back down. After Puss in Boots the only other DW’s film I’m looking forward to is Me and My Shadow since it’s a CGI hand drawn combo. Overall, I think Brave can at least top DW’s next year which it most likely will. I hope Pixar can redeem itself next year with Brave after Cars 2 was a disappointment to most people.
Those are good reasons. Good list.
I think the Cars 2 hate is mostly funneled in by the Cars 1 hate.
Being a fan of the first film, I can safely say that if you liked the first, you will enjoy the second to some degree. Don’t pin your hopes too high and you might just walk out of that theatre satisfied. A lot of critics went in expecting another ‘Wall-E’ or ‘Up’ and left feeling cheated, so set the bar low.
But if you ask me honestly, a truly great film stands up to high expectations. The fact that I had to lower my standards to get more out of the experience shows how mediocre Pixar is becoming nowadays. Still holding out for Brave, but I’m disappointed with the studio’s state of affairs recently (not just with Cars 2, but with Brenda Chapman, Lou Romano, Jan Pinkava, rumours of Toy Story 4, Toy Story 3 fanboys, etc.). 
I was immensely annoyed with how stupid Mater was in this film on my first viewing, but on the second viewing, I forgave him more for some reason. But the way they essentially made him to be a total klutz in the sequel, with none of his redeeming coyness or moments of inspiration in the first movie, felt out-of-character for me. I actually address this in my one-shot trilogy which I’m releasing this week (of which you’ve already read the first, thanks again, IV!).
I can’t wait for your review! Don’t go in looking for problems, just let your mind go and experience it with a blank slate. That’s what I did for my first viewing, and I immensely enjoyed it with my friend. The criticisms and nitpicking will come later once you really assess it post-movie, so enjoy it while you’re still ‘high’ from the excitement of the action sequences! 
Great critique, Bllboi!
On point 1, I wholeheartedly agree with you that they should’ve focused a bit on the other subplots as well, and devoted more time to the other racers. I found it hard to feel sorry for them when I barely even know them, and some of them like Shu and Carla barely said anything! So when they played that dramatic music and showed all the scenes of destruction, I was like, why should this be significant for me? Whereas when you see Dug get hurt for example, or M-O being trapped in the garbage disposal, you feel for them because you know a little bit about them by that point and had formed that all-important connection.
On point 2, I also felt it went by in a blur. I have mentioned many times in my posts that one of my biggest gripes with Cars 2 was the pacing. The London race felt too rushed and we didn’t really get to see as much action or commentary as the first and second race. I also wouldn’t have minded another half hour if that meant more screentime devoted to character development and interaction.
On point 3, while I understand a lot of fans defend it on the basis of Pixar trying something new, I feel that drama and comedy doesn’t have to be mutually-exclusive. You look at funny films like Charlie Chaplin, and you see a huge amount of poignancy and contemplativeness. There’s heart and soul in those slapstick jokes and pratfalls, and we feel for The Tramp. You look at Michael Bay’s earlier films like The Rock, Bad Boys and Face/Off. They’re mindless blockbuster action movies, but there are dramatic character moments there as well. Amidst all the explosions and gunfights, you see the protagonists trade witty banter, we discover more about their characters, and you actually root for them to win. I didn’t feel that with Cars 2. I couldn’t care less about Mater’s internal journey of self-discovery, or whether the lemons won or not. The only ones I actually connected with were Finn (the opening sequence being a great example, where he [spoil]discovers the death of his colleague before he makes his daring escape[/spoil] and Holley, who has to learn to find the courage from being a techno-geek to full-fledged field agent. I did got worried when the [spoil]lemons planned to kill Lightning and Mater tried to warn him[/spoil], but that was already the last third of the movie. I wasn’t engaged for the first two-thirds of the movie from the opening sequence onwards.
Have you seen Kung Fu Panda 2 yet? Personally, I enjoyed Cars 2, but if you asked me objectively, Kung Fu Panda 2 is the better movie this year.
Thanks TDIT! Lol, it’s actually “Ballboi” but I understand. I haven’t seen KFP 2 yet but I herd it was great. I’ll probably consider renting it once it comes out on DVD/BluRay. Like I said, DW’s upcoming slate after Puss in Boots looks very weak. Madagascar 3 just looks like an obvious cash grab to me. I have it grossing at about 150-175M but that could change. The whole circus plot thing just sounds stupid to me. Not too sure about “Rise of the Guardians” “The Croods” and “Turbo” just yet. Like I said, Me and My Shadow catches my interest since its a CGI hand drawn combo. Next year’s movies for animation look weak to me. Of course I’ll see Brave and I’ll probably see Pirates Band of Misfits since I’m a big fan of Aardman.
Funny thing about Mater. On the Cars 2 poster where it has Holley, Finn, Lighting and Mater, I found it funny that Mater is the main protagonist and he’s off to the side on that poster.
For Brave next summer, I just hope they don’t try to make it Hunchback type of seriousness as far as putting kiddish type things in it. I think the gargoyles kind of prevented it from being a nice dark film. I can understand it since children probably wouldn’t like a serious film. About those gargoyles, in the song “A Guy Like You”, they made alot of future references to things that hadn’t happened yet like gambling and barbershops which wern’t funny. I said in a post that Brave would probably have a few kiddish things in there to attract the younger audiances. Hopefully it isn’t like what they did for Hunchback.
Trust me, baliboi. KFP2 is the best Dreamworks’ Animation masterpiece next to the first Panda movie and HTTYD. Of course, if you count its traditionally-animated catalogue, it’d be one of the greats next to Prince of Egypt, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, etc. Most Planeteers who have watched Panda 2 agree that it is one of DW’s best.
I’m not sure about Puss, but if they keep it within Megamind’s standards of “fun with heart”, I think I’ll enjoy it. Not too excited about next year’s slate, I’m holding out for Brave and maybe Ice Age: Continental drift. Can’t say if I’m too excited for Pirates of Penzance, sorry I mean, Carribean, I mean, Who Don’t Do Anyth… Band of Misfits. Trailer didn’t impress me, but it’s got me intrigued.
Haha, I noticed that too. Since Mater’s the main protagonist, it was deceptive advertising! Although maybe they wanted to make it look familiar to long-term fans, so they went with the same arrangement as the first movie.
I hope to God they don’t a Hunchback cop-out too. Maybe they can have cute creatures like Miyazaki does with Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke. The critters were adorable, but they didn’t detract from the dark or fantastical tone of the films. Even better if they didn’t even have animal sidekicks and they go full ‘Braveheart’/‘Highlander’-mode. But for the love of animation, do not do a Genie/Mushu/Hunchback gargoyles time anachronism comic side-relief characters.
Well, I decided to offer more opinions on all this Cars 2 hate since I thought that my reasons weren’t explain well enough. Sorry if these things sound too repetitive and if it‘s too long. Keep in mind that these are just opinions.
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Was their too much Mater? Yeah, I thought that there was too much of him. I said before that he was my favorite character from the original Cars. What I liked about him in the first Cars was that he was a nice character and wanted to be Lightning McQueen’s friend. In Cars 2, he’s not with McQueen that much, he’s with Finn McMissile and Holley Shiftwell. I think Pixar might of taken his character a little bit too far with Mater’s Tall Tales that was on the Disney Channel. Like I’ve also said a lot of times before, people may be annoyed by him because they don’t prefer Larry’s brand of humor. What I like about Pixar is that their humor is for people and audiences of all ages. It’s one of those things that I hate about DW’s movies is that some of their humor revolves around pop-culture references. I did laugh at some of Mater’s humor and did find a little bit of it annoying in this film. Like I’ve said a lot of times as well, Mater didn’t annoy me too much but its just that people didn’t like that Mater got too much screen time and they got tired of seeing him. It makes you want to see somebody else in the film. I think one of the major turning points of him was when Finn was telling him about how people are laughing at him. It did change Mater’s attitude at the end of the movie a little bit. In the end, I thought that there was too much of him and that they could of developed more time on these new characters. Yes the spy plot is the main focus but I thought that they could of made a minor subplot involving Lighting and Francesco’s rivalry over who was going to win the World Grand Pre. In order for them to do that they should of removed the sub plot involving Miles Axelrod’s new fuel that sponsored the race.
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Did I think the film too long or too short? I thought that it felt way too short. My aunt told me after we saw Cars 2 that it was too long. I disagreed with her and said that it felt way too short. I thought that the pacing at the beginning was a mess. I disinclined the scene with Finn at the beginning of the movie because I thought it was paced pretty good, looked awesome, and it did show a lot of promise of what this film should of been. I think when we first see Lightning and Mater up until they arrive in Italy was paced pretty sloppy. Some of the scenes itself felt like they were way too fast. They weren’t like zippy and all over the place, but they went by pretty quick. I thought when they arrived in Italy it was paced better and it started to feel interesting as they started to get more clues. I guess if it wasn’t for the first half of the movie it would of felt like it was around two hours. I know one of the main problems with the original Cars was its runtime of 116 minutes which is Pixar’s longest film. I know that the movie dragged on some of the scenes at Radiator Springs. A thing that I like about Pixar is that their pacing on a lot of their movies are well done and they don’t feel too short or too fast. I think that if they were to pace the beginning better, this movie would of felt a little bit better to me. Like I mentioned above, they could of took out some of the minor subplots and focus more on the new characters. Well, I understand if they were to add about 15-20 minutes to the movie to develop these characters, then people would probably gush on this film a little bit more due to the movie being way to long. Like they always say, you can’t please everybody.
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Was it a good or bad thing that there was no heart? Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you take it as a fun summer comedy like some of DW’s movies, then it is good. Then on the other hand if you look at it like the other Pixar films, then it’s a bad thing. Some of Pixar’s films like Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3 are fun, but aren’t meant for that purpose as they try to make it a little serious with adding some heartfelt drama. Like I’ve said a few times before, it’s not bad to have a fun summer comedy with razzle dazzle visuals but you got to have that solid story to support it. I just hope that some of these critics didn’t walk into Cars 2 expecting another Toy Story 3 or UP as far as a heartfelt story goes. It was nice to see Pixar go for something different for a change. I mean if they kept going for heartfelt stories, critics would tend to get a little tired of it. When I went to see Cars 2, I expected it to be a fun summer blockbuster which it turned out to be. Supposed if this movie was from DW’s, would it get a better rating? I think that it would of. At least the critics would of understood that it was coming. It was probably one of the main reasons that people dismiss this movie was because they weren’t expecting Pixar to go this route. To me, Cars 2 felt more like a very good DW’s movie rather then a just an average Pixar film like A Bug’s Life was.
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Was it the same without Doc Hudson? It made a little bit of a difference that he wasn’t there but not all that much. I remember when I first herd that Cars 2 was being made, I wondered why Pixar wasn’t going to put him in the movie. I actually forgot for a while that Paul Newman passed away until I looked up why they weren’t going to put him in Cars 2. I didn’t like how in Cars 2 that they had that little tribute to him with them visiting his museum at Radiator Springs. I don’t even think that it lasted about 30 seconds. I think this scene right here was the perfect part and an appropriate time to put some heart in the film. There are some potentially good story situations like where Lightning gets upsect on the trip that he doesn’t have Doc Hudson with him. I think that they should of put it in there as it would of worked. They could of done another situation where Lightning and Mater’s friendship went sour after the Tokyo race. I really think that that opportunity was a hit and miss for them. I was a little disappointed that they couldn’t bring him back for Cars 2 since he was one of the important characters in the original Cars. To me, I thought Doc acted a little bit of like a father to McQueen in a way. Overall, I felt a little disappointed to see them treat Doc’s removal like it wasn’t all that special.
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Does it deserve the score that it has on RT? No. I felt that the critics were a bit too harsh on this film. Like I mentioned, if this was a DW’s film, then it probably would of received better reviews from the critics. Possibly somewhere in the 60-70’s if DW’s did make this. I just think that they might have been disappointed that Pixar would go this route. I would of liked it more if Cars 2 were to do it like the first Cars was where it was fun but had a little bit of drama involved. Well lets say we developed those characters and removed some subplots. Would it please everybody? Possibly but I have a feeling that some people might find some more reasons to gush on about this movie. Well, I said this above but Pixar sometimes can’t please everybody.
Overall, I really thought that Cars 2 was a great movie but I felt disappointed. I felt that Pixar really dropped the ball on a lot of the fans with this movie. I just hope that they can redeem some of its fans back next summer with Brave. I did think that the acting was pretty good and Michael Giacchino’s score was excellent. I hope that Patrick Doyle does the same thing for Brave next year seeing how great the soundtrack was for Thor. Well, I just wanted to explain my theory on the Cars 2 hate a bit more since I thought I could of explained it better. I do enjoy doing these types of things and I hope to do the same with Brave next summer.
Ithas made more then the original Cars worldwide but not in domectic.
THIS. Not the only reason but a major player…
It’s time to stand up for Pixar. Critics have been blowing Cars 2’s ratings to pieces. Their reviews have blank statements with no evidence from the film. Look here: www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cars_2. Their main criticism is that Cars 2 is not “emotional”, like Cars (which it doesn’t have to be, it’s in a whole different genre), and that it’s only for kids (which it isn’t, because most kids can’t understand much of the humor.)Together we can fill the hole the critics made. Start posting!
I have yet to see Cars 2 and I really want to see it. But I can get the hate. People felt the orginal Cars was “good” but not “great”. Visualy up to Pixar’s standards but story wise not. Obvisously I loved it though. Cars 2 sounds to be not as good as the first. When a squel comes out after the orginal gets decent reviews (Cars has a 74% on rotten tomatoes), people expect to be better. And I guess that some felt pixar could have done a better job. Roger Ebert loved it though. He gave it 3 1/2 out of four stars. Toy Story 3 got 3 stars from him in 2010.
I have wondered if it’s just alot of people that are upset that we haven’t had an ‘Incredibles 2’ yet.
That was one of the biggest gripes I’d been hearing for several years once this was announced.
I’ve rewatched the film at least 6 times on Blu-Ray, and it isn’t as terrible as so many make it out to be…then again, I’ve never really had any problems with cars, but so many people do.
I still remember being excited seeing that first teaser, but the audience I was with…there was an unrest and uneasiness. One of my friends was still attending animation classes at the time, and one of her instructors showed the preview, and even there…the reaction wasn’t good.
Oh my goodness. This. Thank you for your entire post, but especially this.
I love superhero movies. The Incredibles was a fantastic superhero movie. But every. single. time. Pixar announced a sequel the fandom starts whining like we’re entitled to having a sequel that will for sure 100% be the most amazing sequel ever.
It’s starting to make me not want a sequel out of spite TBH. 
I personally do not want a sequel to The Incredibles. It’s fine just being what it is. I do like the fact that Brad Bird has to have involvement or no deal. But I think it’s for the best that he’s trying to do other things. I just hope MI:Ghost Protocol does well so maybe he can finally make ‘1906.’
Btw, so many people that claim Cars 2 is a bad movie, they don’t know bad animated movies. I’ve seen stuff that makes me spitting mad.
I’m as sick of the Incredibles 2 talk as anyone. That has nothing to do with my hatred of Cars 2.
There are plenty of worse animated movies; just a quick glance at ThatGuyWithTheGlasses will confirm it. But Cars 2 is still below the standards of acceptable storytelling and way below the standards of Pixar.
I think that even if The Incredibles 2 was announced as having a sequel, and I feel it will come some day, the reaction to Cars 2 would pretty much be the same. I would still be just as confused and disappointed (not hate), as to WHY this film was released, seeing as Cars is generally accepted as being one of the least critically-acclaimed Pixar films.
Also, what adds to the confusion is to why the less good Pixar films was selected to make a sequel when I’m sure there are other more original projects to be made, and also when there was another movie that WAS good the first time around and where there is so much potential for a sequel, unlike Cars. So in a way The Incredibles and lack of a sequel for the time being does have a slight impact on people’s feelings towards Cars 2, but only by a little bit because even if a sequel were announced for it, it can’t reverse the awful Cars 2 being put out by Pixar and the reaction to the “it’s good enough” attitude by Pixar (which is unlike them which makes things more perplexing).
This is exactly my point, though. Critics didn’t think much of Cars, but families loved it, and plenty of fans loved it. What’s bugging me isn’t that Cars is not everybody’s favorite Pixar film. That’s fine. That’s great. Different tastes make the world go round and make for more variety of entertainment. My problem is that it feels like the people who felt Cars was mediocre expect Pixar to feel the same way they do, like it’s obvious.
I don’t say this specifically at you, RachelCakes. This is just the general vibe I’ve been getting, and it doesn’t feel fair to me. We don’t know how Pixar staff feels about each of their films other than a few rare comments (Lasseter mentions in the Cars 2 commentary that Ratatouille is a studio favorite.) We already know a fair deal of Pixar employees don’t care about reports or critics all that much, so for all we know Cars is a studio favorite. With all the silly fun packed into the Cars Toons, I would not be surprised.
Whether you like the franchise or not, every inch of it breathes “we had fun with this.” I personally find it contagious and a major appeal to the films.
Heck personally, with much love to every Pixar film including TI, The Incredibles is at the bottom of my list. 