Car's Life 2 (2012)

Pixar was a studio with great credibility throughout the first decade of the 21^st century.  They came into it with two Toy Story movies and A Bug’s Life.  They would follow those up with Monster’s Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles.  There was Ratatouille, Up, Wall-E, and even Cars.  The decade finished off with Toy Story 3, making it one of the best animated runs possibly ever in the film business.  They were on fire.

Their first major misstep came in 2011 with the release of Cars 2.  It was the first time when audiences were truly disappointed with a Pixar film.  The film centered around Mater, a supporting character from the previous entry.  The focus shifting to a character who had basically been comedic relief hurt the story and drained it of the serious emotional impact that made Pixar movies special.

From an outside perspective, it had looked like Cars 2 was made from a purely monetized standpoint.  John Lasseter, the director and head of Pixar at the time, knew how much money had been made from merchandizing the first Cars film.  The movie may have not been the biggest Pixar hit, but children bought many, many toys based off the material.  Lightning McQueen cars had sold like hotcakes.  Lunchboxes, Valentine’s cards, and all sorts of toys were flying off the shelves and into shopping carts.  A new movie with new characters would get even more merchandizing dollars.

The sequel wasn’t the only merchandizing attempt that was made following Cars.  A Car’s Life came out around the same time.  It wasn’t very good, but it was one of the initial films in the rise of the mockbuster industry.  It came out in 2006, the same year as Snakes on a Train and The Da Vinci Treasure.  These might not have been the movies that started mockbusters, but it was the year where they solidified themselves as a formidable force in the home video movie world.

Spark Plug Entertainment was the studio that put out A Car’s Life, and it wasn’t done with Cars there.  When Cars 2 came out in 2011, Spark Plug Entertainment had their own alternative ready to be released.  Car’s Life 2 came out on January 17, 2012.  That was less than a year after the Pixar film.  It was a follow up to A Car’s Life, the same amount of time from its predecessor as Cars 2 had been from Cars.  There would also be a Car’s Life 3 release ready for when Cars 3 came out.

Car’s Life 2 continued the story of Sparky (Corinne Orr) as his teenage angst got him into trouble in his town.  He ended up falling in with Diesel (Jean Richards) again, this time working at her gas station as she ripped other cars off.  There was a new interstate off-ramp coming to their town and Diesel wanted to be ready to rip off the city cars that came by.

The characters who drove the story forward in Car’s Life 2 were primarily the same characters as in the first film.  Sparky was back, as was his father, his sister, and his bad influence.  Some side characters returned too, though there was a new side story with a new character.  Zipper (Jim Woods) was Sparky’s cousin from the city who had just moved to their town.  He quickly met Speedy (Denise Finelli), and fell in love.  His whole storyline was trying to get her to reciprocate the feelings.

The main story was still about Sparky rebelling against his father.  He was a young car who wanted everything to be the newest equipment and fanciest decals.  It was much like spoiled children who want the most expensive phones and best-looking cars.  Sparky’s father was a baby boomer type who wouldn’t give any of the new stuff to his son, instead reverting to the “back in my day” mentality.  Their feud came down to one character not being able to consider the past and one character not being able to look to the future.  They needed to find some middle ground that they never really found.

Car’s Life 2 was both an improvement and a step back from A Car’s Life.  The most notable step in the right direction was the animation.  A Car’s Life was very sparse in the background detail.  That may have been partially due to it being set in the desert.  Much of the desert consists of sandy terrain.  It’s a movie.  An animated movie, but a movie all the same.  There should have been some sense of art design that could have made the landscapes look better.  Instead of simple, sandy brown with the odd cactus or a road cutting through it, there could have been more detail to the locations.  Car’s Life 2 added some detail.  There were rocks, cactuses, buildings, and different sorts of markers that made each location feel decidedly different.  There was still emptiness, but added features made it feel like it wasn’t devoid of life.  It was a lived-in desert.  The world was brought to life.

The other thing that worked well within Car’s Life 2 was how progressively evil Diesel got.  She had been the bad guy in the first film, but that was upped with the sequel.  It began with her gas station.  She was watering down the gas to get more bang for her buck, to the detriment of the customers.  Then she targeted Sparky.  She lured Sparky away from his dad’s gas station by promising him money and fancy accessories.  She charged Sparky high prices so that, even though he was her employee, he would owe her money.  Finally, Diesel bought the circus that was coming to town and made the performers participate in deadly acts instead of their fun, safe antics.  She was making cars sick, overcharging them for that unwanted privilege, and sending them to their deaths.  It was as dastardly as she could be and a much better villainous plan than her previous “Let’s rebel!” attitude.

These improvements weren’t enough to keep the movie from being a chore.  It was slightly better than its predecessor, but still not good.  The biggest detractor was the extended runtime.  A Car’s Life had been 40 minutes.  That felt like forever because the movie was boring and poorly made.  Car’s Life 2 wasn’t as boring, and it was a better made movie.  The problem was that the runtime was now 81 minutes.  That was over twice the length A Car’s Life.  There wasn’t enough strength in the improved elements to justify the runtime.

Almost as big a problem was Sparky.  That character was the worst.  In both movies, the character was a whiny attempt at a rebellious teen.  He doesn’t learn anything.  He demanded that his father take him seriously and spend copious amounts of money on him.  He wanted the newest technology.  After going through the Diesel stuff and almost dying, the final scene of the movie had Sparky whining about wanting the new technology and how his dad would only buy old, out of date equipment.  He was right where he was at the beginning when he got to the end.  There was no real change to the character.  The story felt meaningless.

Car’s Life 2 came out as a result of Cars 2 being released in 2011.  Unlike the movie it was mockbustering, it was an improvement over what came before it.  But like Cars 2, Car’s Life 2 was a bad movie.  Though it improved on the animation and on most of the character work, it took too long to tell a stale story with a stagnant main character.  It was still a mess.

Mockbusters aren’t usually movies meant to tell quality stories.  That’s not their purpose.  They are easy ways to cash in on a bigger movie’s success.  In the case of Pixar movies, the track record had been stellar up until the point of Cars 2.  That’s why Spark Plug Entertainment went about making Car’s Life 2.  They wanted to make money off a studio that had a respectable history.  Maybe some of that monetary love would trickle down to the little guys.  They could only hope.

Even though they were primarily making a mockbuster of Cars 2, the people behind Car’s Life 2 still had to try and tie the story into what they had built when they made A Car’s Life.  They were continuing the adventures of Sparky.  Much like Cars 2, their sequel would have to find a new way to unfold a good versus evil story.  This attempt to continue a story through mockbusters was something that has rarely happened throughout mockbuster history.  Pixar seemed like the right studio to inspire this.

The first misstep for Pixar led to an interesting footnote in bad movie history.  Not only was Cars 2 considered bad, partially because of the quality of the film and partially in comparison to everything else Pixar made, but it inspired one of the first mockbuster sequels made to cash in on a sequel to what was originally mockbustered.  Even when Pixar misfired, they were helping define the cinematic landscape.  Pixar has been one of the most important studios of the 21^st century so far.

Now for a few notes before we head off:

• Snakes on a Train (week 29) and The Da Vinci Treasure (week 268) were mentioned in this post.
• Car’s Life 2 was directed by Michael Schelp, who also directed A Car’s Life: Sparky’s Big Adventure (week 2) and An Ant’s Life (week 122).
• Corinne Orr was in Car's Life 2.  She also did work in A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure (week 2) and An Ant's Life (week 122)
• Car's Life 2 had two more people from A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure (week 2) returning to voice characters.  Those people were Denise Finelli and Christopher Petrosian.
• Jean Richards from An Ant's Life (week 122) did voice work for Car's Life 2.
• Have you seen Car’s Life 2?  Have you seen A Car’s Life?  Did you know either of them existed?  Talk to me in the comments about any of the things related to this post.
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• Next week, the Sunday “Bad” Movies will be keeping with the family theme as I cover Ghost Hunters: On Icy Trails.  The movie follows a team of ghost hunters comprised of a government agent, a child, and a slimy ghost.  It’s something, and I’ll be writing about it so come on back in seven days to check out what I have to say.  See you then.