Cars 2 Movie Review

The rational person in me who understands business and money-making enterprises can grasp why Pixar decided that a sequel to Cars was necessary. But the movie critic, or more aptly, the fan of cinema in me wishes that studios wouldn’t continue to make sequels to undeserving films. The first was very high-grossing, but the worst reviewed of all their films, most of which rank among the best in Hollywood cinema (animated or not) of the last 15 years. Cars is the only Pixar film with under 90 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and it’s the lowest scoring on Metacritic. But it grossed nearly $250 million domestic.

Pixar's Cars Movie Review

Pixar’s Cars was the only film in their continually impressive lineup that I hadn’t seen. This was due in part to the fact that it was released during my first year living abroad and I had quite limited access to English language films that were not dubbed into Spanish. Also, it was the first of the Pixar films to receive only lukewarm critical praise. I had little reason to seek it out until this year which saw the release of the sequel.

At first glance it looks like a difficult sell. It’s the story of a rookie on the racing circuit named Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) whose goal to be the first rookie to win the Piston Cup (Cars’ version of the Indy 500, I suppose). His main rivals are an aging racer named The King and a brash veteran called Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton). After finishing in a photo finish 3-way tie, a 3-car race is scheduled in California. McQueen wants to get there as quickly as possible to schmooze a big sponsor, but fate leads him on a different path – to a small town in the middle of the desert.

The Ten Best Films from the All-Time Top 100 Box Office

Star Wars remains in the top ten all-time box office after 33 years

The list of the top 100 box office successes is measured only in terms of pure dollars. For this reason the list is heavily slanted in favor of more recent films. This is not only because of standard economic inflation, but also because of ticket price inflation, which generally has not matched inflation of the dollar. Star Wars remained atop the list from 1977 until it was unseated by Titanic in 1998. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial was number 2 from its 1982 release until 1998. Home Alone (released at the end of 1990 and earned a significant amount of its box office in early 1991) now sits in 45th position despite having been in the top 10 for a decade or more. In less than ten years it has dropped 35 places. That's an incredibly precipitous drop when you consider the kind of staying power older films had. But with exponential growth in ticket prices we're left with a constantly shifting list of the top box office kings.