The world of Disney Pixar’s Cars is actually pretty creepy and confusing, when you stop to think about it. For a start: where are all the people? Is this some kind of post-apocalyptic world in which humanity has been enslaved and/or destroyed by our own creations, kind of like a kid-friendly version of the Terminator mythology?

Because if this is merely a world in which cars are the people, then why do they have doors? Windows? How come some big carpeople (ie. Mack) let smaller carpeople (ie. Lightning McQueen) travel around inside them?

I mean, ew.

And also, if the cars are people, then why are the bugs in this world also cars? Sure, it’s a cute VW reference, but still. Why are the cows tractors? Think too much about the underlying concepts surrounding this whole society and it really is very, very worrisome.

Which is why I advise you not to really think about it at all. No, it doesn’t make sense that cars need to use the restroom. No, I can’t think of any possible way that the proto cars of this world were able to find, drill and refine oil into gasoline in order to be cars in the first place. It just doesn’t make a lick of sense. But never mind all of that. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy yourself.

I certainly did.

I bring up the fuel issue early because that is largely what the plot of this movie revolves around: fuel. There’s a massive, untapped oil reservoir, a new biofuel that is set to lift the carplanet’s dependence on nonrenewable resources, and we have a monacle-wearing badcar by the name of The Professor who has built some kind of shifty device masquerading as a video camera. On the scene is one Finn McMissile (Michael Caine), of British Intelligence, and through a series of The Man Who Knew Too Little-style misunderstandings, he ends up believing rusty tow-truck and best-friend of Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), the simple-minded Tow Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), to be a brilliant and cunning American intelligence agent.

Mater is very much the star of this movie, his uncouth ways and backwoods naïveté the main focus. McQueen has just returned to Radiator Springs with his fourth Piston Cup trophy and just wants some alone time with girlfriend Sally (Bonnie Hunt). But before long Mater gets McQueen involved in the International Grand Prix, a series of three races to be held in Japan, Italy and England, and featuring all different types of racing cars: Formula 1, rally, touring and the like, as well as McQueen’s own NASCAR equivalent. (Again I say, don’t think about it too hard, or suddenly it all becomes a bit racist.)

At the first event, held in Tokyo, Mater embarrasses McQueen utterly and ends up in possession of some secret documents (hidden on him by the distinctive voice of Bruce Campbell). He makes the acquaintance of fetching British agent Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer), and he is soon an unwitting foil in her and McMissile’s search for the mastermind of whatever evil plot is afoot. It’s weird: everyone knows something bad is about to go down, but no one really knows what will happen if it does.

Well, except us. We know that a mysterious villain has ordered that the racers in the International Grand Prix be randomly disabled using an electromagnetic pulse (I tell you, these things are EVERYWHERE), thereby casting aspersions on the safety of the alternative biofuel that all cars in the race are required to use, being heavily promoted by Richard Branson-like businessman Sir Miles Axelrod (Eddie Izzard). As an aside, I don’t think the people who made this movie know quite how the British nobility works; he should thence be properly known as Sir Miles, not Sir Axelrod. But anyway.

Throughout a whole lot of backroom dealings and savvy spycraft and Mater being… well, Mater, the sinister figure behind the plot is at last uncovered. It’s a pretty standard Scooby-Doo ending, but none the less satisfying for all of that. Meanwhile, the visuals are stunning, and please, I beg of you, pay the extra for the 3D. You won’t be disappointed.

Pixar has always been at the forefront of computer graphic technology, and in Cars 2 they have really given it their all. The inherent futurism of Japan is well-suited to animation, of course, and both Paris and London are rendered beautifully. But Italy! The sea, the sky, the cobbled streets and even the quality of the light… it is all absolutely breathtaking as a piece of art, and this movie is worth it just for that sequence alone.

And now, the important question: does Cars 2 live up to its predecessor? Indeed it does. Is it a better film? Well, it’s very hard to say. It’s certainly a much bigger film, in both scope of the plot and the arena in which it plays out. The original took place largely within a small town and on a large racetrack. Here, we are taken all around the world, given James Bond-esque shenanigans in exotic foreign locales, and treated to a far greater variety of vehicular sentience than we’d yet experienced. We see barges, construction equipment, jetplanes, trains… seriously, who is MAKING all of these things? Who laid the train tracks? And if you were, say, a massive bulldozer with sharp teeth and an unstoppable weight of motion behind you… wouldn’t you expect to be part of the master race, and not just toiling away for the benefit of much smaller vehicles?

No. Still not thinking about it. (But why geisha cars? With parasols? WHY?)

To conclude, I just want to make mention of what came before the film. First, previews! Normally, I avoid them like the plague, but, oooh! Happy Feet Two (baby penguins singing L. L. Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out” and “Sexy Back” -- hey, remember when JT used to sing?), and then: The Lion King 3D! Awesome.

There is also a terrific Toy Story short called Hawaiian Vacation. Double awesome.

And then the movie itself is yet. more. awesome. Funny, clever, gorgeously rendered, massively entertaining and sure to be a hit with you and the kids.

Even if you really have to stop yourself from thinking about it too much.

   -- Rachel Hyland