Film Review: Cars 2

   Cars 2 brings to head a paradox that, while entirely possible to be ignored in the first film, is addressed explicitly in the sequel: Vehicles run on fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are made from dead plant and animal matter. In the Cars universe, all the plants and animals are vehicles. Do you see where I'm going with this?

   Eating is tantamount to cannibalism. Not only that, but what did those ancient animals run on? More fossil fuels? Where did those come from? Also, if all cars eat and drink is petroleum, then what's the point of all the agriculture seen in Cars 1?

   It's weird. Like, how in shows or movies with animal people, it isn't really brought up exactly whether they're actually animals... or people. I guess that's why they are what they are, but, eh, I guess you'd expect that'd interact in more complex ways. In this franchise, they're... cars, right? There's the scene, for instance, where the spy cars are able to identify a car in a crowd by zooming in the security footage on the vehicle's "VIN number." (That'd be the equivalent of, what, getting somebody's fingerprints off blurry grainy CCTV of that person? Only they actually control the cameras and can zoom in.) My point is, though, you wouldn't be able to do that with something without a VIN.

   it's not all bad. The racing scenes are... racy? You can clearly see the techniques and technologies pioneered by the Wachowskis for "Speed Racer." But, uh, the racing raises its own questions. If everyone's a car in this universe, then what kind of jobs to they have other than racing? In the first film we saw gas station attendants and tire shop owners, a Sergeant in the military (hmm.. car wars) but, other than that...

   So, only the fastest cars race, right? Are you born into your make and model? That's like some kind of institutionalized racism, isn't it? It seems implied, if not explicitly stated, by the presence of the lemons. If those cars are so unpopular, that means that they're a minority.

   I don't know. I just don't know. Let's just say they're all robots in a post-singularity world. Except the landmarks themselves are shaped like cars...

   I still just don't know.