Missing its spark

After successful laps with Cars and Cars 2, the Pixar pit crew has sent Lightning McQueen and friends back out onto the track with flat tires and empty tanks. The result is a disappointing ride in the slow lane.

In Cars 3, Lightning’s career is on the line. At event after event, a new generation of high-tech racers is leaving the famous No. 95 in the dust. If Lightning (voiced by Owen Wilson) doesn’t win an upcoming race at the Florida International Super Speedway, his new billionaire sponsor, Sterling (Nathan Fillion), will force him out of racing and into hawking mudflaps. The film drives the elder-statesman bit into the ground: Pundits and young punks relentlessly quip that Lightning is past his prime, constantly reminding everyone of what’s at stake.

Lightning isn’t ready to call it quits. He visits the dirt tracks on which he perfected his craft and tries to draw inspiration from memories of his late mentor, Doc Hudson. Lightning ultimately takes up with a new guru, another old-timer by the name of Smokey (Chris Cooper).

To help Lightning prepare for his pivotal race, Sterling assigns one of his employees, Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo), a trainer, to get Lightning into shape. Cruz battles old self-esteem issues exacerbated by her peers’ taunts: “Always a trainer, never a racer.” Drifting away from the rivalry between Lightning and super-sleek newcomer Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), the film shifts to a story about Cruz trying to prove herself.

The Cars 3 writing team revives many of the charming characters (such as the bovine tractors) from Cars but forgets what made the first two films fun: the Laurel-and-Hardy synergy of Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) and Lightning. In his few appearances, everybody’s favorite bucktoothed, rusted-out pickup truck sputters through stale lines. Mater’s brief solo scene after the credits have rolled doesn’t make up for his being practically sidelined throughout the film.

One sequence shows some spark. At a demolition derby, Miss Fritter (Lea DeLaria), a monster yellow school bus sporting a pair of menacing smokestack horns, chases Lightning and Cruz around a figure-8 track deep in thick, sloshing mud.

Despite the storyline’s mechanical failures, the G-rated Cars 3 remains kid-friendly, without even an utterance of “hell” the G-rated Cars twice got away with. Parents will appreciate the messages of humility and self-sacrifice in Cars 3, but the film’s sluggish pace won’t hold kids’ (or adults’) attention.

If Pixar doesn’t rebuild this franchise’s engine, perhaps it’s time to park the series in the garage.