Yaaaa, this movie was a bit late coming to Indonesia. It was already playing in US theaters from mid of June, and we only got the chance to see it since mid August. But the good thing was that the movie still played here rather than being skipped, so we can still see in the large screens. As I mentioned in my previous post The Hitman's Bodyguard, I went to another movie marathon with my wife yesterday. This was my second movie of the day and we saw this one in Kuningan City at 5PM where due to the Independence Day holiday, all the school kids seemed to be somehow watching the movie together with us (even including some toddlers where the parents left their stroller in front of the cinema). Anyway, let us move on to the movie.
Brief Story Line
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson - The Royal Tenenbaums, Wedding Crashers, Shanghai Noon etc) was a legend in the Piston Cup racing. However, in the latest season, he got a very strong competition from a rookie car Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer - The Lone Ranger, Mine etc) who was using a new technology to practice and increase his capability. With more and more of these younger generation racers, the more veteran ones were slowly being replaced by them.
After the last race of the season, McQueen felt that he needed to get back his mojo. After getting encouragement from his girlfriend Sally (Bonnie Hunt - Cheaper by the Dozen, Zootopia etc), his best friend Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and his other old friends from the Route 66, McQueen decided to go back to training with Rust-eze, his sponsor. To his surprise though, McQueen was introduced to a different sponsor named Sterling (Nathan Fillion - Castle and Firefly TV series) who owned a high tech racing center. Sterling was a big fan of McQueen and he assigned a trainer named Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo) to give him various newer training mode.
As McQueen felt that the in-house training (even using the simulator) did not really provide him what he needed, he convinced Sterling that he should be training outside. Sterling agreed but insisted that Cruz accompanied him. However, instead of him getting the training he wanted, McQueen ended up giving lots of inputs to Cruz. With time running out, McQueen decided to meet with Smokey (Chris Cooper - The Bourne Identity, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 etc) who was the crew chief of McQueen's former trainer Doc Hudson.
So could McQueen be ready to race again and compete against those younger generation cars? Could he got what he wish for to decide when he would stop racing? Find them all in this wonderful 3D animated movie.
End of Brief Story Line
I got to say that I was not a really big fan of Cars series, despite being a Disney/Pixar movie. I never saw the previous movies in theaters and only saw them in the cable TV whenever they played. I enjoyed the original movie, but not as much for the second one. But I think this third one was the best. I believed that the story was really really good. It was filled with good moral messages such as friendship, self confidence, taking chances and even a good "teacher-student" relationship. This is quite a classic tale of underdog vs the favorite or David vs Goliath kind of story. So you could imagine how our emotions (including mine and my wife's) were truly stirred up during the final race. Even the whole audience in our theater which was filled with kids were all very excited during the climax race.
In term of animation, this was one of the best animated movie I had seen. The car race scenes in Florida 500 was absolutely amazing. It felt like we were inside the car itself feeling the intensity of the race. The part of the final race of the Piston Cup season in the beginning involving McQueen was also very perfectly animated. In term of the characters, the portion of those from the previous 2 movies were lesser, like Sal or Mater but they focused on the newer characters of Cruz, Sterling, Jackson Storm and obviously Smokey with his other friends from the generation of Doc Hudson. The most memorable new characters would definitely be Cruz and Sterling.
I did not see this movie in 3D but I am very sure that the 3D experience would be very good and entertaining as I noticed there were quite a number of scenes that would look wonderful in 3D effects. Though you can also still enjoy the movie even if it's in 2D. The sound effects during the car race were also very good and gave that added feeling of being in the audience's seats of the race.
The movie apart from giving lots of moral messages, also still had some funny moments where we could laugh, usually when it involved the goofy Mater. By the way, there was a quite funny scene after the end credit scene. So if you are willing to wait until the very end, you would be able to see that part. And as a usual Disney/Pixar movie, there was a short movie before the start of the film which was a very good one as well. It would be recommended for you not to be late so you can see this one.
Overall, my wife and I pretty enjoyed the movie. I think it was quite a worthwhile entertaining movie to see in the theater. Some of the scenes might be a bit difficult for very young children to understand, but I am sure they would be entertained by the colorful cars and amazing car race scenes, plus the fun characters as well. If you love the previous Cars movies, then you would love this one too. If you have not seen the original movie though, perhaps it would be a bit challenging to get acquainted with some of the original characters due to their lack of screen time now. However, I think you can still enjoy it as a standalone movie as the story was quite independent from the prequels.
So if you have not seen this one yet, please go to the theaters and see it. I am sure it would entertain you (and your family or your loved ones).
Happy watching!
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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