The Cars films have always felt a little like Pixar, the pioneering animation studio behind Toy Story, Up and last year’s Finding Dory, in the third rather than fifth gear.
Cars 3 is the second sequel to have spawned from the 2006 original; the third in a franchise that has, for over a decade now, whiffed somewhat disappointingly of commerce rather than creativity. With over $10bn banked already from merchandise alone, Cars has certainly proved itself to be a hugely profitable vehicle. The unfortunate result is a series that opportunistically loads each new film with fresh and disposable characters at the expense of developing old ones. Cars 3 won’t win over the naysayers – it’s got its predecessors’ rusts and some – but fans should be satisfied whilst those on the fence may find themselves surprisingly touched by the time the credits role. Naturally too – damn it Pixar – the animation itself is dazzling.
Not for the first time in the past twelve months, I was struck with an intense yearning to disagree with the majority of the American population on viewing James Ponsoldt’s The Circle.
It would be fair to say that critics across the Atlantic were not exactly kind to Ponsoldt’s adaptation of Dave Eggers’ best selling novel in the wake of its Tribeca debut. Audiences too failed to warm to the film, in spite of a mightily impressive cast roster of Emma Watson, Tom Hanks and the late Bill Paxton to name just a few.
There’s a moment in Karl Freund’s original 1932 The Mummy – a then original feature designed to replicate the themes and successes of Universal’s contemporary horror films: Dracula, Frankenstein etc. – in which the Mummy himself (Boris Karloff playing Imhotep) is awoken from his sarcophagus slumber behind an unaware Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher). It’s a scene that’s not quite as effective as it might have been but one that works by virtue of the brilliant tension of expectation that comes with viewers knowing exactly what is coming.
The Film Blog 