trailer mix

Cars 2 Trailer: Pretty Colors, Pretty Confusing Plot

The full-length trailer for Pixar’s Cars 2 has arrived and it doesn’t make sense, though that doesn’t matter much. It opens ominously on some beautifully animated water and oil rigs (“out here, is where the ocean burns”), where Finn McMissile, a Michael Caine–voiced silver Jag, is “looking for a car.” Meanwhile, in a much more carefree register, Lightening (Owen Wilson) and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) are on a happy mission to “see the world” and enter a race, while getting mistaken, by Caine, for “master spies.” What all this means for the actual plot — and how the comedy, the sports, the mistaken identity, and James Bond elements come together — is hard to discern. The dialogue, which consists of not-that-funny jokes, doesn’t add much clarity. And yet, despite all the incoherence, it looks fun: technicolor, fast, and goofy. (Plus, we’d happily listen to Michael Caine voice anything, even a boring, immobile rock.) And it’s Pixar, so even with a chaotic trailer, you know you’re in good hands. Though there is always the possibility this promo is a bait and switch and Cars 2 is really an intense tearjerker about where automobiles go to die. (Though that would be fine, too.)

Cars 2 Trailer: Pretty Colors, Pretty Confusing Plot