Considering the phenomenal artistic and financial success of Pixar over nearly 30 years, the Cars franchise remains a weird outlier. It has unquestionably been a cash cow for Disney, not just from the feature films, but from its merchandising might with youngsters. But it’s not a franchise for everyone, and not universally beloved.
Cars remains a big enough deal 16 years after the first film’s debut that it’s not surprising to see Disney+ getting into the Cars business with the Cars on the Road series of shorts that debuts on Disney+ Day, September 8. And it’s unlikely to win over any new converts, or change the narrative about what the franchise offers. What you’ve seen is what you’ll get: a little speedy kid-friendly action, a little too much Mater and more weird questions about the nature of the Cars universe.
The nine 6 – 8 minute shorts do follow a single united premise: Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) is nervous about attending the wedding of his estranged sister on the other side of the country, inspiring Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) to suggest a buddy road trip. The pair then find themselves having adventures at a variety of far-flung locations: speed trials on the Salt Flats; getting parts on a film set; joining a group of “cryptid hunters” in the woods searching for monsters; and more.
Individually, the shorts are an odd conglomeration of tones and focal points, overseen by writer Steve Purcell. Some are built around giving the characters previously unexplored character traits, like Mater’s anxiety over dinosaurs, or Lighting’s fear of circus clowns. Others play as extended riffs on a movie source, including The Shining and the Mad Max series. The jokes are often pretty thin stuff, digging into unasked questions like “what would dinosaurs be like in the Cars universe” or “is there a Cars afterlife,” and too rarely build on what we already know about our heroes.
When they do build on that stuff, there’s at least some fun to be had. It’s a nice subversion of expectations that Mater and Lighting’s foray into filmmaking makes Mater the more natural performer, despite Lightning’s celebrity status; it’s also a solid joke to have Mater’s out-of-chassis experience involve challenging Death to a slightly less challenging game than chess. But even then, Cars on the Road assumes that viewers have developed enough of a connection to these two characters that adult viewers might be interested in wherever they take us—and that’s a big assumption.
In fact, Cars on the Road’s most promising detour is introducing a new character, a monster truck named Ivy voiced by Quinta Brunson. Unfortunately, Ivy takes off on her own almost as soon as she’s introduced, leaving everything to build up to whatever might be coming between Mater and his sister, which turns out to be … let’s just say, not really worth all the mystery.
It’s clear that a concept like this, chopped into conveniently consumable nuggets, is more designed for attention spans of the grade-school fan base that made Cars huge in the first place. And at the very least, these shorts keep the action moving, even when one of them is basically a full-on musical number. There’s room for stuff on Disney+ that’s basically for parents to put on in the background for the young ones, and walk away from. Considering that’s what Cars content has generally been for 16 years, this road trip isn’t taking us somewhere new.
Cars on the Road will debut only on Disney+ on September 8, 2022.
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Let Us Hear From You
Are you a Cars fan? Do you think that the Cars franchise stays strong even after 16 years across multiple sequels and spinoffs? Will you be watching Cars on the Road when it debuts tomorrow? Share your thoughts in the comments.
For more about what is coming to Disney+ this month, be sure to look at the article below:
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