I am one of those guys who actually liked the first Cars film. That one had a soul. Then came the second installment, which was even better - one of those rare sequels that did not feel forced or redundant.
And then Cars 3 came along to spoil it all.
How bad is it? Well, bad enough that a kid next to me could not wait for the film to be over. And bad enough that I was struggling not to fall asleep due to pure boredom. The middle part of the film (like from 15min in to about 15 min before the end) is mostly a blur for me - it was that bad. They say that with any story, you want to leave audiences questioning "And then - what happened?" so that the story shows "and then - this happened, and then - this..." but this film has nothing happening. There was tons of talk, reminiscing, fear of old age, but nothing worth watching.
One saving grace is the film's visuals. And there was one camera move I loved. That was it.
Oh, in case you have heard of the ending, which I will not disclose here - it feels terribly forced. Lightning McQueen makes a random decision that is supposed to make us feel all warm and fuzzy, but it doesn't. It just leaves everyone with the big WTF on their face, and rightfully so, because it is so out of character and so stupid. So, the ending does not work, as much as it was cute as an idea. Good ideas need to be well executed to work, otherwise they fail.
All in all, the story feels like a typical Hollywood "paint by numbers" screenplay which was developed by going over McKee's or some such author's check list, and then going like this:
- Start with action on page 1? Check. - Unexpected ending? Check. - Lots of dialogue in the middle part? Check. - Take care of the minorities? Check.
And so on. Painting by numbers never produced anything worthwhile.
Story must come from the heart if it is to work, otherwise you get Cars 3 - an uninspired borefest.
Essentially, Cars 3 is a 10 minute story stretched to painfully long 110 minutes. I was shocked when I discovered that it was that long - for a CG feature with no story, those extra 10 minutes are both expensive and meaningless.