So 2 movies about vehicles came out recently, and they were both awful. One was from Michael Bay, so no one was really surprised. One was from the brilliant animation studio Pixar, so the people got sad. An end of an era. The winning streak was over, because the most respected moviemakers in the world decided to churn out a cash grab. What surprised me however, were the similarities between these two movies.
A needlessly convoluted plot with a twist that everyone saw coming? Check. Racially stereotypical cars only present for comedic relief? Check. The main hero of the previous movie completely out of the loop of all the important events, while tertiary characters are introduced to move the plot forward? Check. Now I am not going to say that these movies are identical to each other, but the fact that Pixar, you know, the guys who made Toy Story, Ratatoille and Wall-E, made a movie wich was, quality-wise, comparable to a movie from the guy who made Pearl Harbor, is something that saddens me dearly.
The movies have been out for a while and have both been great commercial successes, so chances are you have probably formed your own opinion on both movies. But I want to talk about them because I can, damn it. Plus there was this obnoxious kid that would not shut the fuck up so this is my way of channeling my frustration.
Cars 2 tells the story of Lightning McQueen and his wacky pal Mater, who travel the world over when Lightning decides to enroll in the world cup, where he meets his nemesis, Francesco, who has a hilarious Italian accent because he is a formula one car. Being in foreign countries, the ignorant Mater, the towtruck, gets into all sorts of shenanigans because he is suffering some sort of culture clash.
Sounds fine right? It's not Pixar worthy, but it's still better than half the stuff Dreamworks farts out. Except that's not the real plot, because Pixar shoehorned in some James Bond parody where an Aston Martin car (because he's British! Get it? I said Get it!?) tries to discover a secret about a group of bad cars who want to thwart some plan to make all cars drive electric because they are evil and thus represent big oil and... you know where this is going right? Way to go all Al Gore on us, Pixar! The Aston Martin (voiced by Michael Caine, who is clearly phoning it in, but it's fucking Michael Caine so shut up because he is awesome) mistakes Mater for a spy for some reason and thus Mater becomes a spy. Lightning McQueen starts to play second fiddle while Mater (voiced by redneck retard Larry the Cable Guy) plays out the most cliché spy novel since The Spy who Loved me.
The jokes are lowest common denominator, either slapstick or cultural references (The Big Ben is called the Big Bentley! Car puns!), the characters are all one-dimensional stereotypes and the voice-acting feels phoned in. While I was watching this, at no point did I feel as if I were watching a Pixar movie. Nono of the charm was there, none of the creative spark.
So was it all bad? Well of course not, it is still a pixar movie. The animations are brilliant, the designs were lush and gorgeous, the action pieces were exciting to watch, and the kids, you know, the intended audience, seemed to be loving the hell out of this movie. But the fact that the critcs thought that Kung Fu Panda 2 was far superior than Cars 2 says a lot.
Back to that other awful movie. I would first like to say I am not a Michael Bay hater. I still think The Rock is a great action flick, I thought Armageddon was enjoyable, and I thought the Island's first act was pretty good. None of his movies I would dare to call good, but when he is on his A-game, they are highly entertaining. I enjoyed the hell out of that first Transformers movie, I don't care what anyone says.
The second Transformers movie was an abortion of a movie, not only overlong but with little in action and with a finale that had nothing to show for it except two retard robot balls. I went to the third one, only thinking 'It can't be as awful as that last one, it just can't be!'. And that is pretty much the summary of this entire movie; not as awful as the last one. Is it any good then? Fuck no. From the hourlong job-hunt that Shia Labeouf undertakes, something that moves the plot forward in no way (why is this dude even in these movies? He does nothing the first 90 minutes but bitch about his life, and then in the grand finale he just fades into the background with all the noise), to the subplot about some Russian Decepticon that apparently does something evil, it's just 90 minutes of absolutely nothing happening before the hourlong mindblowing finale kicks in.
I would like to ellaborate on the plot, but why bother? It's the exact same one as the last two, it's as needlessly convoluted and silly as those and it eventually boils down to Autobots and millitary fighting Decepticons. But before that happens a lot of crap is thought up that is entirely pointless. The parents of Shia show up for some reason and do nothing but deliver godawful comic relief. Shia has two pet robots who do nothing but perform gutwrenchingly awful comic relief. And Ken Jeong shows up, to, you guessed it, deliver comic relief with an offensive racial stereotype. This is a movie of almost three hours long that promises this epic of a story, but instead we get two hours of filler before the big fight begins. By then the entire audience has lost all interest and no character arc has been established.
The grand finale, an epic battle with some amazing action set-pieces, the best 3D since Avatar, and astonishing special effects, comes too late. Yes it is amazing, yes it is absolutely thrilling, but you have to go through torture to get there and in the end you won't give a shit because no character is interesting enough to root for. So my recommendation is rent it, skip those first one and a half to two hours, and just skip right ahead to that amazing finale to be blown away by Bay's trademark action, the one thing he is genuinely good at.
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