Cars 3 film review- by Beyond The Trailer

Full text transcript of the Cars 3 review:

Hello and welcome to my spoiler review of Cars three, where after having a. Reaction to the movie, I have prepared my rebuttal now since I’ve been so public about my bad reaction to the film, a number of you have already had your rebuttal. And you’ve said, Grace, do you really think you should take a movie so personally? Shouldn’t you just look at it as a piece of filmmaking and keep your personal opinions to itself?

Well, I’m so upset, but Pixar is the one that made it personal.

And if Pixar wants to make things personal, then they need to be prepared for when someone’s personal reaction is negative. They always assume, like anyone who insists, you think like they do, that you will thank them for correcting you and showing you the light. But as so is so often the case in reality, that is not the case. All right. So let’s let’s get started. Now, my problem with Cars three is it lured me in with a message that really appeals to me and to many others who enjoyed the movie. Math knows what I’m talking about, my weekly box office report, and that is being industry savvy, that it’s important to know yourself, know the arena you’re competing in, know your fellow competitors, know the game, etc. You have to know every inch of it. It’s not just raw talent, but it’s also experience. So I really enjoyed, as I said in my non spoiler review, the sophisticated message of how do you keep yourself at the front of the pack as the game changes around you and as you change. I thought that was really exciting to explore, not just in general, but in this type of movie. So I was very forgiving to the film, slower pace that did not match what was promised in the trailers. I was like, OK, this is a slow kiddie type movie, but I’m really interested to see where it goes. Oh, but then it was horrible. It was a trap. It’s a trap. Here’s the setup. So after us, for those of you who are watching this, instead of seeing the movie, there’s a string of humiliating losses to Jackson Storm.

So Lightning McQueen, you know, he pushes himself too hard, which I thought was very powerful and he wipes out. So he recovers. And his this is all very, you know, very interesting and very sophisticated, really reflected what it’s really like to be a professional athlete. So he recovers and Rusty’s his sponsors sell to Sterling, you know, Nathan Phillips character. And he’s a he’s a new type of boss. And I thought that was really interesting to explore what it’s like when your sponsor, you know, the company changes ownership and you’re stuck dealing, your contract moves to someone new. I thought that was great and I thought, that’s sterling. I really respected Sterling. I thought he was a good individual. So after, you know, trading isn’t going so well, Sterling is like you’re just going to keep damaging your brand. Lightning McQueen, I think you should retire and promote all these wonderful products. And I was like, those are some nice products. Sterling, you’re market your merchandising and marketing team is tops on like. Well, you know, I was gonna say, unlike many movie studios these days, because it still exists because of its merchandising department, they’re like they should have had like a little thing flash up on the screen and said you could really buy these things. But after the end of the movie, who would want to buy them? All right.

So anyway, lightning, it’s not his fault, though. It’s Pixar. All right. So anyway, Lightning McQueen is like, I can’t go out like this. And I understood that he’s like, I can’t go out. Having lost a Jackson storm and Jackson storm, Armie Hammer did a great job. The loss is so humiliating. But, you know, and I thought at the beginning, the movie, I also like that they underscored that, like, you know, how disrespectful sometimes things can become. Right. Particularly, you know, social media these days. It seems like everybody wants to tear everything down. There’s no such thing as professional courtesy. And so I like that being exposed to. So I was really rooting for Lightning McQueen. I was like, he has to come back. He’s got to shut this Jackson storm garbage down. So I was very proud of Lightning McQueen for negotiating one more race with Sterling. And he was a tough negotiator. I loved that scene. I thought it was great that it played out like it really would and with a professional athlete and their sponsor. And he says, look, one more race. If I lose, I’ll retire and promote the merch, as they said, or if I win, then I get to decide when I’m done. And he got the he got the deal and he got to train the way you wanted to. And so Sterling to his I think this is perfectly reasonable. Said, I want you to take your trainer, Cruz Ramirez, with you, because, you know, I’ve invested a lot of money in you have purchased trusties and I don’t want you to damage your brand if it can be helped with the horrible and other horrible lost Jackson storm.

So take her with you. It was a fateful error. Lightning McQueen should have said no way because she she ruined his life and his career. All right. So anyway, I want to take a little bit of a pit stop here and just point out that I realize that nobody can race forever and that coaching is the next great chapter to a professional athletes career. However, I felt that it would have been nice for Lightning McQueen considering his personality and what we’ve been we’ve gone through with him. For two movies now for him to go out on top, to have that one laugh, to win one last race, prove he still has it, and to shut Jackson Storm down and then go on to coach and promote, I think that that would have been fabulous. But Pixar is like, no, that’s not going to make anybody angry or cry, so we can’t do it. So I agree. When he lost his temper, when Lightning McQueen lost his temper in the trailer with Cruz Ramirez and said, I’m not doing any training because I’m stuck babysitting you. He was 110 percent right. And I wish he’d never going back to pick her up because she was just dead weight. And so he wasn’t ready when he got to the race. And it maybe he would have been if she had actually trained him instead of making it suddenly all about her.

I mean, it’s like, hey, Cruz, I’m sorry that things didn’t work out for you and maybe we can, you know, let’s put a pin in that. We can tackle that next. But my race is in three days and it’s kind of important. But anyway, the look on his face when he started the race and he made race the look on his face and he was like, wow, this just isn’t going to work. And he decided to quit. It was just devastating. I mean, it was just so horrible. He didn’t go out on a high note. He didn’t go out on his own terms. And he gives Cruz Ramirez his spot in the race and then get this, she wins. It’s our first ever professional race. That’s why I called her a Mary Sue. And of course, she wins. And of course, she can just do Doc’s signature flip over move that no one else has done since. But she’s never even practiced it. But she’s like, I had someone tell a story about it at a bar. So why not? Because I’m a Mary Sue, who I was infuriated. We’ll talk about Cruz momentarily. But I want to focus right now on this message that I wasn’t happy about with Pixar message. I felt that they wanted to break hardcore competitors. That’s why I took it so personally. They were like, oh, is this what you like?

Is this how you feel? Oh, come here, save space. Don’t be like that. And I was just like, whoa, whoa, I trusted you. That’s horrible. I thought the whole point of the movie was to showcase.

I thought the whole point of the movie was to showcase different types of competitors, but instead it was to say that certain competitors are just flat out wrong and have an unhealthy attitude and need to be corrected. And I just really I really hate that. I just really hate it. And I thought that the movie felt like it was written by people who weren’t competitors, because if they weren’t competitors, they would realize how devastating it is to see Lightning McQueen go out like this. And I think if you’re a Lightning McQueen fan, even in the slightest, there’s at least a little bit of a competitor in you. Now, on that note, let’s go to Cruz Ramirez, who’s supposed to be the ying to Lightning McQueen’s yang. And I do think that it’s important to highlight other types of people who want to be professional athletes but don’t have the same attitude that Lightning McQueen does and that hardcore competitors do that. Don’t you know, I thought it was great when she said, you know, did you ever feel like you couldn’t win? And Lightning McQueen McQueen’s like, you know, it just never occurred to me that I couldn’t do it. And I thought that was great because that’s true. People think differently. So I thought it was nice to acknowledge that. But she she’s a classic Mary Sue, because she doesn’t give anything to Lightning McQueen despite being his fan and mentor. She just takes, takes and takes.

She only really races two races and she wins both of them. Absolutely ridiculous. And she gets a shortcut right to the big race, which again, she wins with no pro or even amateur experience as a racer. She’s just she’s like I’m just, you know, natural talent, of course, is important. But, you know, natural talent doesn’t win right out of the gate, especially when you’re competing against the pros, professionals or professionals for a reason which anyone who knows anything about anything that’s professional understands and also wears the struggle. You know, Lightning McQueen struggled. You know, that’s why everybody liked him in the first movie, because he had to go and he had to relearn how to race. And here Cruz Ramirez is like, no, I’m just memory. So everything I do is awesome. And I just I just thought that was really annoying. I also just liked when she was racing and Lightning McQueen was like, tell her she’s a fluffy cloud or she’s like a pink rainbow and all this different lingo that he, you know, reconfigured to fit her. I was really upset about that because why doesn’t she know the lingo? I thought a female competitors and drivers in such a bad light. Cruz Ramirez is a fan, a trainer and an aspiring professional driver. How does she not know the lingo? The fact that she needed these cutesy terms, I thought was just, again, very infuriating and put women in a very bad light.

So I was pretty upset at that point watching the movie. But I have to say, I did like the idea of team ninety five, you know, and that little kid who, you know, you know, in the trailers, he’s calls outlining it. Every time I heard it, I was like, oh, I’m going to cry.

By the way, it wasn’t in the movie. I was like God damn Pixar, you know. So he’s just this little kid is an adorable Lightning McQueen fan.

But then he just switches allegiances like that. And it’s like Chris Ramirez. And I’m like, first of all, he would be upset because whereas he’s a fan, you would want Lightning McQueen to finish. You want to see him go.

Like that, especially since Lightning McQueen didn’t vouch for Cruz Ramirez to the public and that little minicar has been watching the movie. He doesn’t know what’s going on. So you would just be like, you know, if your favorite athlete tagged in like a newbie, a rookie that you’d never seen, you wouldn’t be like, oh, exciting. You would be like, what the hell? Pay a lot for this ticket to see my favorite person compete. And now I’m looking at somebody I don’t even know. So that wouldn’t have gone down. But I did like the message. I didn’t like this message that the number is what lives on the legacy and that Lightning McQueen someday would coach maybe a whole crew of racers under the ninety five. Well they can all of the same number. Ninety five. But you know what I mean. I thought that was a nice message. I liked that a lot. I thought that was really good. Good. But I wish that again he’d been able to leave on terms that were at all acceptable. And I also thought the move was very dismissive of new technology and at first it seemed like it was going to embrace it. I loved the Rusty’s training center. I love that little exhibit that he made for Lightning McQueen, just like you did. Good, Sterling. This is nice. I was like, where’s the cafeteria and gift shop? But it seemed to me the end of the movie because they went back and they found Doc’s old mentor.

We’ll talk about Doc in just a second. They were like, oh, this new technology is, you know, FUI. And you’re like, come on. I mean, it’s important not to reinvent the wheel. It’s important to remember the soul of what you’re doing. And a lot of times it’s just as important to feel it. You know, your instincts, your gut, you know, feel the track, feel you know, you just you just know when it’s when to when to turn and when to do something right. It’s instinct. So that’s very important. But I think that what’s great about modern sports is that technology is a benefit. What you want to do is you want of a balancing act between the two. And I don’t think that this movie did a good job pointing that out and reminded me a little bit in points of the movie early on, like Moneyball, you know, talking about how they’ve reinvented baseball. And of course, Moneyball doesn’t always work. You don’t want to forget the soul of the game and why you play. But Moneyball, that kind of baseball does make a difference and it’s adapted by all the teams today. And so I thought it was a disservice to be like, oh, yeah, you know, like this technology is stupid. It was only like a minor distraction till we go back to, like, what really matters. And I’m like, you guys all suck this.

Just turn into like a Hallmark card, not even a good one. All right. So focusing on Doc, I was surprised how much of the movie focused on a character that, with all due respect to everyone involved, is dead, both the character and the person who voiced it, acting icon Paul Newman. And it’s tough to spend a third of the movie focusing on a character and an actor that, again, you know, is dead. And every time Doc didn’t say something, you’d be like, why do some doc speak in his flashbacks? Oh, that’s right. Paul Newman’s dead. And you’d be crazy to cast someone to take over the role. So it’s like, well, if Paul Newman can’t record new lines, maybe you should find a different storyline, right? I mean, I guess they wanted him to come full circle. But you know what? I don’t think he and Doc were actually that much like they you know, they were opposites, which is why they worked well together. So. The fact that Lightning McQueen just became doc, you know, complete with his clothing at the end of the movie, a new paint job I just felt was kind of depressing, you know, that nobody was an individual, that everybody just, you know, this I feel this is becoming more of a Pixar is like that. You know, it’s like the circle of life isn’t anything about like environmentalism, but it’s like nothing’s new. Don’t get too excited about anything.

Don’t think too much of anything that you you know, nobody’s unique and special. And I know some people today it’s popular to say like, oh, you think you’re a snowflake. I think everybody is special and important. You know, I don’t think that they should be above anyone else. We’re all human beings. But I think to just lump everybody into a giant flesh colored ball is also a mistake. So I really you know, again, as I said, I had real problems with what they were preaching here. Also talking about changing cast members. It was super noticeable. That shitkickers wasn’t voiced by Michael Keaton. I’m like, you can’t do that. I know that’s supposed to be Michael Keaton. I don’t care if Bob Peterson works at Pixar. Michael Keaton, if he’s not going to reprise the role, you got to create a new character. It was super distracting. Now for the movie, it was pleasant to look at. You know, it was a lot like looking at in America while driving. And that’s always been the appeal of Route Route 66. See the country. And I was nice to see the franchise go back to that appeal of the first film, you know, after losing it with the world tour that they took and cars to it, actually, you know, you would think you would just see the world then. They didn’t seem to get that. And to that that opportunity was lost there. But this country is full of a lot of different people and rootstocks.

Route 66 doesn’t cover the whole thing. So a lot I think by the end of the movie, I really felt that this was like the countryfolk where Doc was from telling the city folk like Lightning McQueen to be more like them and the to be like the city folk were wrong as to how they operated and what they believed in. And I really have a problem with that. Again, I think that individuality is important and that instead we should respect our differences and maybe even appreciate them. And I think that first animation studio that strives to be authentic, the irony of Pixar these days is that they’re just becoming more and more formulaic and demanding that everybody think not only alike, but think like the creatives at Pixar. And I find that really annoying. Again, you’re like, well, what about you know, the whole movie’s a message. You know, Pixar is the one that decided to put a message front and center, not storytelling, not filmmaking craft, not animation, not racing. They decided that they were going to tell everybody how to think and what what to do. And so that’s on that. So I’ve just presented a very strong opinion and I look forward to a spirited discussion of the comments down below. Thank you so much for going over this with me. And you can check out some more videos right now from.

And.