Somewhere in the middle of Cars 3, Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) skips the indoor simulation and heads to the beach for some old-school training. At this time, I half expected the animated race car to encounter a Statue of Liberty buried in 
the sand … a world where Cars evolved from people?! It’s a madhouse!
We are now three films into the Cars saga and Lightning McQueen still has some growin’ up to do. This isn’t the worst tack to take; no matter your age, there are still more lessons to learn; why shouldn’t an animated car grow, too? Lightning McQueen begins Cars 3 with a victory, yay! Boy, there’s a ton of car racing in this film. After that, however, his fortunes sour – A new, faster, technologically superior opponent, Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), defeats Lightning soundly and before long, not only does Lightning’s success disappear … so do his peers. By the end of the season, Lightning is the only car of his variety left on the track, and in his effort to prove he’s not a fossil, he wrecks himself but good.
Well, this is a plot I didn’t see coming – Lightning got old … just like normal, non-animated, non-automotive people. I do believe I feel a metaphor comin’ on. A yup. I can feel it in my crank shaft. I am Lightning McQueen and I got old – now how am I going to deal with it?
Oh, don’t worry about the crash; what might have proved fatal in real life amounts to little more than a screen wipe in cartoonery. Cars 3 has a genuine love/hate relationship with responsible story-telling. While in rehab, Lightning ignores all of his buddies from the first two films – hey, what good were they anyway? – and meets trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), the car responsible for getting Lightning back-on-track. You will have to take my word for it that of all the vehicles we encounter in Cars 3, Cruz Ramirez emerges as the focal point for the rest of the film. I suppose you could see that coming if, perhaps, you view Rocky as The Burgess Meredith Story. But that assessment is forty years old … and false.
For all the attempts of Cars 3 to speak to an older audience, I think it lost the younger one. For most of the film, Lightning doesn’t seem to be having much fun, which means that kids are going to spend a lot of time staring at a racetrack with a determined car, not a happy one. I think the six-year-old new to the world of Cars would do better to start with the original and maybe stay 
there. Does your child really need to get to the part where Lightning McQueen hasn’t got it anymore?
Cars 3 has two themes, one responsible and one fairly irresponsible. The responsible one is stated and it deals with aging gracefully. It’s possible non-athletes will see this message as inapplicable, but it is for the Lightning McQueen in all of us. No matter who you are, you are eventually going to get to a place where you aren’t as good as you used to be, or, frankly, somebody else is just better. How you deal with that juncture in your life says a great deal about who you are. In Cars 3, Lightning McQueen tries unsuccessfully to adjust to new technology and then decides he’s better off finding his roots (well, not his specifically, but I think we get the idea). Fittingly, the irresponsible (and unstated) theme also involves a head-in-the-sand denial of existing information. People, the oil is running out; you’ve had two full films already to play around with the pretense that our environment-wrecking and natural-resource-depleting hobbies have no consequences. Are you really encouraging a generation of children to love auto racing? Won’t they be a tad upset when they discover the remaining oil is Mad Max-level precious? That’s going to happen during their lifetimes. You don’t see that as just the slightest bit irresponsible? Is it too much to ask that by film #3 Lightning McQueen becomes a Tesla? Or runs completely on sun power? Is that really any more far-fetched than the given premise? Yes. I suppose it is.
♪Well, they made another Cars
And they cruised to the box office stand now
Seems they forgot all about WALL-E 2
And indulged in this cash cow
And with the screenwriters blasting
With the grace of braying half-assed sow
Yes, they’ll be done, done, done
After Lightning rusts his floorboards away♫
Rated G, 109 Minutes
D: Brian Fee
W: Kiel Murray and Bob Peterson and Mike Rich
Genre: Growing old while animated
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Hmmm, little boys with a strong sense of mortality, maybe?
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Environmentalists
♪ Parody inspired by “Fun, Fun, Fun”
