Edd Watches Pixar: Cars 3 Review

I’m a grown man who hasn’t seen most of the Pixar movies that people are obsessed with, but I was challenged to check ’em all out and share my thoughts. Join me as I watch ’em all one by one – see if I buy into the hype.

Movie No. 18: Cars 3 (2017)

After the abomination on four wheels that was the cash-grab known as Cars 2, I had absolutely no desire to watch ANOTHER sequel of humanoid hot rods eating away at 90 minutes of my lifespan.

But I’m a completist, so my pain hopefully will be your pleasure.

And to be fair, I come bearing sorta good news – I’d rather watch Cars 3 than Cars 2 again.

I mean, I’d rather eat a hot dog that’s been rolling on the floor of a gas station bathroom than watch Cars 2 again, so that’s not exactly high praise.

Cars 3 feels more like a true sequel to the OK-ish Cars 1, instead coming off like sloppy Mater spinoff. This time, hotshot Lightning McQueen starts losing his mojo, becoming the old head literally trying to keep up with the fancy new rookies.

If this was hip-hop he’d be the 45-year-old rapper SKRRT SKRRT’ing over trap beats for attention.

I liked that two of the cars here were named Rusty and Dusty, like an insult from a black grandma. They should have had three sisters named Fried, Dyed and LaidtotheSide.

To get back on the winning track, McQueen gets training from a yellow female car whose name I can’t be bothered to remember. I was mostly creeped out because McQueen CLEARLY was flirting with this younger car early on EVEN THOUGH he has an established girlfriend for three straight movies. McQueen is a dirtball. Of course this young car once had aspirations of being a racer herself and you know where this is going…

…McQueen bows out of the big final race halfway through, Yellow Car replaces him and because she uses McQueen’s racing number this is somehow legal? Then when she wins they’re BOTH declared the winner? I need my NASCAR aficionados to weigh in on this because this feels a tiny bit suspect. But who am I to question realism in a movie where cars have teeth but don’t eat food and doors for humans that don’t exist?

While the majority of this one was utterly uninteresting, it did have a few moments, specifically McQueen’s journey to the dirt track. Maybe it’s because it spoke to my days working with Valvoline and editing stories about dirt track racing; maybe it’s because it was actually exciting and not just McQueen whining about being old while everyone reminds that he’s old – which actually sounds like me reviewing modern rap.

It seems like they were going for a Rocky 5 vibe for this one but when your inspiration is THE WORST Rocky movie, you might wanna rethink matters.

Gas station bathroom hot dog = Cars 3 > Cars 2.

From now on, the only talking cars we acknowledge are the Autobots.

2.5 stars out of 5

Edd’s favorites:
Inside Out
Toy Story 3
The Incredibles
Monsters, Inc
Ratatouille
WALL-E
Finding Nemo
Up
A Bug’s Life
Toy Story
Toy Story 2
Finding Dory
Cars
Monsters University
Brave
The Good Dinosaur
**Cars 3**
Cars 2

Next up, we’ve got Coco. All I know is that I’m gonna cry a lot.

Want to see more? Keep up with Edd as he stumbles through the world of Pixar here.