YMMV / Cars 2

• Awesome Art: The international locales of the Cars world (Tokyo and Italy especially) are vibrant, and the opening sequence is especially praised for how well directed the action is as well as setting the tone of the film.
• Awesome Music: Michael Giacchino.
  • A brief scene had "Polyrhythm" by Perfume, an upbeat and heavenly J-Pop song, playing in the background.
  • "Collision of Worlds" by Brad Paisley and Robbie Williams is a meaningful rock song set in a perspective of taking a World Tour and explores the themes of Culture Clash, including verses comparing American and British terms. It's the first song played in the credits.
• Bile Fascination: A mild case; after all, it is a Pixar movie. But as the Pixar movie with what is easily the worst critical reception in the studio's history, newcomers are likely to tune in simply to find out why.
• Cliché Storm: One of the major complaints about this movie is the fact that the Cliché Storm element is taken to nigh painful extremes. The clichés were even more evident in Cars 2 because they were using action-movie clichés too, more notable than simple Pixar clichés.
• Complete Monster: Sir Miles Axlerod and Professor "Z" Zündapp are a pair of "lemon" cars who want power and to hurt all other cars simply because they were laughed at for being older models. After they buy up one of the world's largest oil reserves, Professor Z develops a weaponized camera that causes the alternative fuel Allinol to explode and decompose, and Axlerod orchestrates him to use it on the racers of the Grand World Prix, severely damaging the cars, to paint alternative fuels as dangerous and drive the world back to oil, which will enrich the villainous duo. Z personally murders two spies, crushing one and torturing then exploding the other, on Axlerod's orders before the two try to murder the last user of Allinol, Lightning McQueen, planning to make his best friend Tow Mater watch before killing him as well. When their weaponized camera fails, the two plant a bomb on Mater and try to detonate it in a pit stop, uncaring that it is filled with dozens of other cars, and even when their plan fails, Z spitefully activates a timer on the bomb to destroy whoever he can.
• Contested Sequel: While the film is often seen as worse than the first film, some audiences prefer this film for being So Bad, It's Good and having genuinely spectacular action scenes unlike the fairly mundane and slow first film.
• Critical Backlash: With the extremely negative reception it got back when it was released, it is not uncommon to find newer viewers that finally check it, and seeing it as average at worst and only as a poor movie in comparison to the rest of Creator/Pixar's filmography. With Pixar releasing more divisive movies since then, there's some viewers who not longer even see it as the worst Pixar movie. There's also some viewers who don't care about the Cars franchise and found this movie to be more entertaining that the other two, given it at least tries something different.
• Critical Dissonance: The movie was not very well received by critics, yet loved by its target audience of kids. It also has a lot of appreciation from older Pixar fans who felt it was the Breather Episode they needed after the last three successive tearjerkers. In addition, many who grew up watching the movie as kids look back on it fondly enough that they're often baffled to learn it was disliked.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Rod "Torque" Redline, the spy who gets blown up by the lemons early on in the movie has gained a fanbase for his style and cool design, as well as being voiced by Bruce Campbell. His popularity even made him a playable character in the tie-in games.
• Fanon Discontinuity: After Cars 3 released, many fans have simply ignored this film, and pretend that the third one is the only sequel. Made easier by the fact that this film's events have little, if any bearing on Cars 3, so one could logically see the first film and have everything they need for the third one while skipping this one entirely.
• Genius Bonus: Francesco Bernoulli is named after the air-flow physics that is used by Formula One cars' characteristic wings to obtain downforce.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: In Argentina, Cars 2 was the highest-grossing film of 2011.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Turns out Cars 2 isn't the first sequel starring Owen Wilson to end with a knighting in England.
  • A year after Cars 2, James Bond would have to deal with his age in a similar manner as Finn McMissile, right down to the Aston Martin.
  • When Allinol turns out to be a scam by Axelrod, who is revealed to be a lemon (a car that doesn't work right), then in the context of the film, Every Villain Is Lemons.
  • The film is noted as being the only one of the trilogy where McQueen's racing is not the main focus. However, it also remains the only one of the trilogy where Lightning is shown winning a race (not counting the opening of Cars 3 when he wins the Dinoco Light 350).
  • The film contains a Japanese character with the last name Todoroki and a red and white color scheme.
• Ho Yay: Mater puts together quite a day out for his best friend when he comes home, and even tries to infiltrate Lightning's date with Sally. They have a secret handshake that a bystander notices gets longer every time they do it. If that's not bad enough, at one point Lightning chases after Mater repeatedly yelling "You're the bomb."
• Memetic Mutation: "DAD GUM THEY DUN HIT THE PENTAGAWN!!!" ^ExplanationA tweet made in response to the realization that the September 11th attacks occurred in the Cars universe, with the planes themselves being the terrorists. The tweet depicts Mater shouting the titular phrase with a screencap of him using a bidet in the Japanese bathroom. The tweet was later dubbed with a sound-alike voice actor.
• Misblamed: While many people assume Disney forced Pixar to make the movie to drive merchandise sales, John Lasseter insisted this wasn't the case. Lasseter came up with the idea of a sequel starring Mater when he was promoting the first film.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Professor Zündapp is already implied to be a notorious villain from his introduction, but he immediately makes an impression when it's revealed that he had Leland Turbo crushed into a cube. He later crosses it even further when he kills Rod "Torque" Redline and orders his men to kill Mater.
  • If he hadn't crossed it earlier by seriously damaging the Grand Prix racers' engines, and risking their lives because of it, Axlerod crosses it when he orders McQueen dead.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Some of the Family-Unfriendly Deaths. Special mention must go to the death of Rod "Torque" Redline, who gets tortured for information by the villains, and then blown up. While his actual death is partially obscured as a reflection on a screen that's showing a picture of Mater, we get to see the explosion and the flames rising from his body. Not helped by the fact that it underscores an aversion of Never Say "Die".
  • The Lemon mastermind's speech, coupled with his filtered voice and the compilation of the Grand Prix racers exploding and crashing, is a legitimately powerful and intimidating moment for the otherwise pathetic and incompetent villains. Knowing the fact that the mastermind is Axelrod is particularly unsettling, as he founded the Grand Prix to willingly risk the lives of its contestants, and is now shamelessly gloating over it.
    Lemon Kingpin: They laughed at us, but now it's our turn to laugh back. [...] Embrace your inner Lemon. Let it drive you. [...] This was meant to be alternative fuel's greatest moment. After today, everyone will race back to gasoline and we, the owners of the largest untapped oil reserve, will become the most powerful cars in the world! [...] They will come to us and they'll have no choice! Because they will need us. [...] And they will finally respect us. So, hold your hoods high. After today, you will never again be ashamed of who you are! [...] Long! Live! LEMONS!
  • Though not without his funnier moments, Professor Zündapp is a surprisingly menacing villain for something as generally lighthearted as the Cars franchise.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: The video game is seen as a fun kart-racer experience, with a large roster and great mechanics. Notably, the licensed game for Cars 3 followed suit and focused on improving these mechanics and adding new features to the formula established by the games.
• Older Than They Think: While this film is certainly Bloodier and Gorier than both its predecessor and successor, the first film did have one Family-Unfriendly Death in the form of Chick Hicks getting blended to pieces by Frank in McQueen’s nightmare. The difference is that it was just a nightmare and the death wasn’t really played seriously.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Celine Dephare, the only car in the entire universe with eyes on her headlights instead of her windshields.
  • The Pope as a car makes a brief appearance. Fans have fixated on him due to the bizarre implications of his existence (such as there being a car version of Christianity).
• The Scrappy: Sir Miles Axelrod, the Hidden Villain. Though he's definitely a character that we're meant to root against, the character is one of Pixar's most unpopular villains due to a lack of memorability as well as an utterly nonsensical plan. Creating a fake alternative fuel solely to sabotage it and make the idea of alternative fuel look bad is not only ridiculously impractical and convoluted, but comes off as especially pointless due to the film's implication that alternate fuel isn't even being used that much yet, and when Mater figures out that Axelrod is the mastermind, many viewers have expressed both surprise and frustration that he was actually right. It doesn't help that the film already has an entertaining villain in the form of Professor Z, who is ultimately relegated to The Dragon in favour of the far less charismatic Axelrod.
• So Bad, It's Good: The sheer absurdity of turning the comparatively simple Cars franchise into a Darker and Edgier spy thriller, combined with a variety of bizarre writing decisions, has led some to consider the movie unintentionally hilarious in a way no other Pixar movie is.
• So Okay, It's Average: When compared to the bad films of other studios, this is the general consensus. While the film does have its flaws, it's still Pixar. The animation and settings are very creative and beautiful, and the dramatic action pieces are well-directed (especially the opening). In short, while it's not as good as Pixar's standard fare and isn't required viewing within the series, it's a harmless watch if you're just curious.
• Sophomore Slump: Many viewers and critics questioned the necessity of a sequel to what was seen as an unusually mediocre movie for Pixar, and their views seem to have been vindicated after having seen the final product. Cars 3 was seen as such a massive improvement (if not an "apology" for this one) that viewers are now trying even harder to forget that this one even exists.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Between the racing theme, the Spy Fiction elements, on-screen deaths, gratuitous violence and use of firearms, and some of the most terrifying and bloodthirsty villains Pixar has to offer, this film is essentially Pixar's closest thing to an animated adaptation of The Fast and the Furious... on steroids.
  • The film makes a lot more sense if you consider it as a feature-length adaptation of "Mater's Tall Tales," a series of shorts which aired on Disney Channel between the two films in which Mater would tell Lightning a tall tale, only for Lightning to not believe him and be disproved by the end.
  • The film is sometimes called "a DreamWorks Animation film made by Pixar" (which isn't a compliment) and "a film made by Disneytoon Studios if John Lasseter didn't ban direct-to-video sequels".
• Strangled by the Red String: Holley Shiftwell considers herself Mater's girlfriend at the end of the movie even though neither of them have had any interactions that would imply romantic attraction to each other. They haven’t even been on a proper date by the time the movie ends!
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The European Spanish version's soundtrack includes an original theme, "Mucha gente" by pop rock band El Sueño de Morfeo, whose lyrics are a substantially Bowdlerized rendition of its main version. However, while people generally liked both versions, the changes were considered rather perplexing given that the original song, while surely more agressive and bittersweet, wasn't really that kid-unfriendly to begin with. Considering this movie is effectively a Darker and Edgier Actionized Sequel with a surprisingly evil villain, it can be made the case that the original version of the song would have actually fitted the movie's plot to a T.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • When misleading trailers suggested that Lightning would also be mistaken for a spy and tag along with Mater and the others on the mission, many viewers were disappointed that he and the other characters sat out of the spy plot until the third act. And seeing that McQueen and Mater's strong friendship is meant to be the film's main emotional center, having Lightning join the main plot could have taken far better advantage of that.
  • The other World Grand Prix racers have interesting designs and represent a wide variety of racing styles, but, excluding Francesco, they are pretty much background characters, and most of them don’t even get any lines.
  • Leland Turbo and Torque Redline both have distinct and interesting designs and are played by notable actors, but are killed immediately after their introductions. Torque at least has a memorable action sequence, while Turbo is unceremoniously killed offscreen, and isn't mourned or even mentioned by Finn and Holley afterwards.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The rivalry that Lightning develops with Francesco Bernoulli, and Lightning's interactions with foreign racers in general, could have made for an interesting story in its own right, but the spy plot causes it to be relegated to only a few brief scenes between them.
• Too Cool to Live: Why else would anyone cast Bruce Campbell as a superspy just to kill him off? Not to mention that poor British spy crushed into a cube in the beginning...
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Many of the critics of this film note that the "lemon" cars, who essentially come off as equivalent of disabled people, are apparently supposed to accept their lot in life as second-class citizens and praise people like Mater for helping them even as their saviors treat them condescendingly. While nothing justifies the villains' plans, the movie ends with a return to the status quo and nothing improving for the lemons.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The film definitely pushes the violence limit for the G rating, and many people agree that it should have gotten a strong PG rating. Technically speaking, it contains two on-screen deaths, spies driving two cars to suicide in a crash, a car being tortured to death, gunshots, and bomb terrorism. It seems that the only reason it got a G rating is because all the characters are anthropomorphic vehicles.

---