We Got a Sneak Peek at Pixar s Fresh Cars Three
We Got a Sneak Peek at Pixar’s Fresh Cars Trio
Fresh Car Review
Car Comparison
You know it’s coming, but it’s still shocking to see rendered forty feet high and twenty feet broad in stunning 4k. From the earliest trailers for Disney/Pixar’s “Cars Three” (out June 15), we know there’s a wreck. Lightning McQueen, voiced again by Owen Wilson, is fighting to keep up with a fresh generation of hotshot racers when it happens. He gets angry, drops concentrate, thrusts too hard and loses control.
McQueen bounces, shiny-side-down, off the pavement in a shower of sparks, spinning off parts in weightless slow-motion like an out-of-control satellite. It’s graphic. If cars could bleed, this scene might net the movie a PG-13 rating. Our hero is busted and cracked down as the fresh class — led by the black-and-electric-blue bad-boy of racing, Jackson Storm — crosses the finish line.
However told with anthropomorphic vehicles, it’s a sports story as old as time: Youthfull, fine player works their way up, takes out the established veterans with a mix of moxie and fresh blood, likes a period at the top of the game and then, due to the natural side effects of the passage of time or a crank accident, starts to lose ground to the fresh guys. The hardest decision a top-level competitor will ever have to make is whether to retire on top (Barry Sanders) or fight through, knowing that the mind is willing but the bod is powerless (Daunte Culpepper, Cam Neely). Cocky and headstrong — and evidently blind to the fact that he’s an antiquated bubble now challenging against aerodynamic futuremobiles — McQueen proclaims “I determine when I’m done.”
At this inflection point, the movie comes in the predictable training sequence. Substitute Rocky’s meat locker with a glossy mega-money training center that looks admirably like McLaren’s factory. Substitute the dangling sides of beef and Philadelphia Museum of Art steps with positive meditation and a high-tech racing simulator. Substitute Micky with the day-glo yellow, half-Aston, half-Camaro, half-GT-R, half-Challenger, half-Mustang Cruz Ramirez. Voiced by Cristela Alonzo (starlet and writer of the ABC TV series “Cristela”), Cruz is a trainer with next-gen views on racing and a theoretical understanding of the game. If McQueen wants to be as prompt as Storm, he needs to train like Storm.
Cue the training montages.
Cue the realization that not all that is fresh is better and that not all switch is bad.
Cue everyone learning valuable life lessons on the track and off.
But even with a tired and entirely predictable story arc, “Cars Three” manages to be an absolute joy. Car guys will find little to fault with the renderings, selection and even the mechanics of the vehicles. Even the inspiration used for the characters is a treat. Billioniare businessman Sterling is a play on the BMW 2000CS, TV analyst Natalie Certain is certainly a Tesla Model S, Formula One superstar Lewis Hamilton is an insufferable bore. “Cars Three” explains, without pandering, the car-guy gags necessary to go after the plot yet leaves the serious dorkiness to be found by the dorks.
The jokes are LOL funny; the pacing never disappoints, as 1:49 passes in the blink of a headlight; the characters are well-developed and relatable; the visuals impress even by Pixar standards and are perhaps the best we’ve ever seen.
It’s infrequent when the third installment of a trilogy is the best in the series, but “Cars Three” manages this trick with a heartwarming, brilliantly told story that can be appreciated by anyone at any stage in their lives or stock-car racing career.
