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Cars 3 (2017)
A giant mess of two story lines put into one movie.
By the end of this movie, people will wonder why the rest of the movie even exists. The story and plot for the third movie in this series seems relatively unfinished, as if the story line should have been split into two different movies. The story doesn't know what it wants to be, and this becomes very apparent during the film's climax and resolution.
The trailers for "Cars 3" showed that the story was going to take place much later in Lightning McQueen's career, and it does. One of the things this movie does really well is showing the passing of time with the idea that technology only becomes bigger, faster, and stronger than the past technological advances. Lightning McQueen was the best in his time, but now the future has caught up with him, making one of the fastest racers in this story line officially outdated. This, however, doesn't become the major plot when a new character is introduced; Cruz Ramirez.
When this character comes into play, it's very visible to see that this is no longer Lightning McQueen's story, for she desperately wants to be one of the greatest racers of her time, just like Lightning McQueen was during his golden days. This shift in the story conflicts with the Lightning McQueen vs. Jackson Storm story plot, eventually making that rivalry completely pointless at the end of this film.
Lightning McQueen steps down from his racing place and sets in Cruz to take his spot during the final race with Jackson Storm, which is where the movie falls flat on it's face. By erasing the rivalry between Lightning McQueen and Jackson Storm, the whole movie is basically rendered as pointless. There is no purpose for this film by having Cruz take up the mantle for Lightning McQueen, and as I said before, this is where the two story lines become one giant mess. Cruz beats Jackson Storm and Lightning McQueen is still allowed to coach Cruz into being a great racer.
As for the characters in this movie, the original cast is not really near Lightning too much in this film, kind of rendering them to be pointless as well. They're there at some points, but not enough to make them important in any sort of way, which makes them a huge waste of screen time when they appear within a scene. Jackson isn't developed and is barely even in the movie at all except for the first race, parts where they mention him beating his old speed records, and also the final race at the end of the movie. The only characters that are a little bit more developed are Cruz and Lightning McQueen. Every other character is just shoehorned into the movie to advance through the story.
Overall, this movie might be great for kids or it might put them to sleep. It's a 50/50 shot with this movie because it's not like the story was dragging, it just had uninteresting characters. As for the fans of the first Cars movie, they'll find that Cars 3 was better than the second entry, but nowhere near as good as the first one. Definitely save your money on this one and wait for the cheaper DVD release.
Art Less (2016)
A pretty decent web series
I would like to start this review off with me saying I HIGHLY ENJOYED THIS WEBSERIES, so I'm not trying to dog on it, but it's going to sound like I am. I would first like to address the issues with the web series that I found to.. stick out like a sore thumb.
Issues: Well I believe the first and main problem overall was audio, which can be fixed in the future IF a second season ends up being made. At times you couldn't hear what someone was saying or if you could, the sound was just REALLY muffled, in which this was distracting and even at times becoming aggravating. To fix this, I would record the audio separately through another device to get a more clear sounding final product.
Another issue that needs to be addressed is actually two issues put into one. These issues being (some) writing and (some) acting. The writing felt very bad and extremely cheesy at times as if the script was written in a day. The reason I included acting in this portion is because the writing felt cheesy a lot of the times, but only due to the poor acting of some of the characters. The writing could have been saved at times if there was a better delivery, but sometimes atrocious writing can't be saved no matter what.
The final issue I want to address is one story point in general, in which I will not spoil for anyone viewing this. The build up to this point was awesome, but ultimately fell to be pointless. When building up to this, there is a conflict that isn't even solved until the final episode, which is good, but when the time came for the build up to pay off, the result just ended within... maybe a minute at most? Which made the whole build up feel pointless, but enjoyable nonetheless.
The good things: The characters were written amazingly with each and every character feeling relatable in some way or another. The chemistry between these characters brings a feeling of warmness to this web series. A very close friendship between all of these teens will surely bring some joy to your heart. Their situations along with their wants and needs are relatable in a sense, or at least that is how I felt when I watched this web series.
The pacing of the show was on par, being a 5 episode web series and while there were some cases where the episode felt rushed, most of the time the pacing was okay.
Most of all, the story did keep me intrigued all the way through and I ended up wanting more by the time the show was over. With that, I call the show a success!