Cars 3 Movie Review - A Sequel Worthy of The Original

Cars 3 brings us back to the core values of the first film. We get an amazing comeback movie reminiscent of the original Cars movie in a young vs. old and change vs. heritage story. The humor, heart, action and a nostalgia of the first movie is back in this third movie in the franchise.

We open with Lightning McQueen on top of the world but suddenly his world changes with the arrival of hotshot rookie Jackson Storm (voiced by Armie Hammer).

Jackson Storm takes the racing world by storm and brings a wave of next generation racers into the racing world and many of Lightning's friends are forced into retirement.

Lightning continues to race and pushes himself too far that leads to this dramatic crash that we saw in the first teaser trailer and poster. Now Lightning questions if he should race again. After months of time to think he decides to make a comeback with the help of an ambitious new sponsor, Sterling (voiced by Nathan Fillion) and an over-eager trainer, Cruz Ramirez (voiced by Cristela Alonzo).

Lightning begins his training with Cruz and we get into the deeper story of someone who is aging and slowly comes to terms with not being the best at what they do anymore.

The relationship between Lightning and Cruz is a great one and you watch it grow and develop throughout the movie. You learn that Cruz is not only a more than capable trainer but she once had a dream of being a racer herself but ruined her only chance.

The visuals are stunning and Pixar continues to push the boundaries of creating near photo-realistic worlds. The racing scenes never looked better and the training sequences along the beach are stunning!

It is to be noted that Cars 3 makes little to no mention of Cars 2 and seems more like a direct sequel to the first Cars movie rather than the third of the franchise. On the other side of that, Doc Hudson is of huge importance here. Paul Newman passed away after the first film and they used his dialogue from the original to great effect throughout the film. We get a much greater sense of Doc's story and how it pertains to Lightning's thought process of his future.

This is definitely the best of the Cars franchise. It ends in a way that you can see a fourth film down the road. It is a wonderful film about moving on with one's life or career while surrounding itself in an underdog sports story.

Cars 3 races into theaters June 16th!