“Cars 2” strikes me as a trainer film meant to prepare kid viewers to become future consumers of all the vroom-vroom genre crap that Hollywood is going to feed them in coming years. (Then again, how many small fry are going to get a wasabi joke?)

The single best joke: in Japan, Mater mistakes wasabi sauce for pistachio ice cream and gulps down an extra large serving. They are hoping that Mater can help them figure out who is trying to destroy Lightning and otherwise perpetrate an evil plot to sabotage a new alternative fuel. Their hometown sojourn ends when Lightning enters the World Prix, an international race with segments in Tokyo, Italy and London, and he brings Mater along with him.Īt which point, the plot kicks into high gear as Mater is mistaken in Tokyo by Finn and a fellow British agent, Holly Shiftwell ( Emily Mortimer), for a friendly American spy. Under cover of night, he’s snooping around on the platform, only to be pounced upon and nearly destroyed in a hail of gunfire by a bunch of villainous vehicles.įrom there, we go back to Radiator Springs, the small town setting of the first film, to find Lighting and Mater tooling around. The opening sequence, if it doesn’t have young viewers running from the theater in terror, will certainly leave them totally confused and poking parents to ask, “What’s happening?” It’s set on a deep-sea oil-drilling platform and murkily introduces Finn McMissle ( Michael Caine), a British secret agent car. The movie plays like a wannabe kiddie version cross between the “Fast and Furious” and James Bond franchises.

Cars 2 video full movie online