Mediocre sequel to Cars, Cars 2 is the first disappointing effort from Pixar. The film is not awful beyond belief as so many viewers have led you to believe, but it's not good either. The film tries to outdo the original by adding so many elements to a film that used a simple storyline to tell a story that just grabbed your attention. With this sequel, the story is all over the place, and has an espionage sub story, that frankly is boring, and doesn't work in the scheme of things. Mater who was a great character is annoying in this one, and the filmmakers have made him look a lot dumber, which in turn ruined it. I thought the best character was Michael Caine's character in this one, and even Caine's great voice performance couldn't save this one from being a good film. The biggest problem of the film is that there is way too much going on on-screen, not to mention that everything presented before you is ridiculous and not very funny. The gags feel strained and uninspired. They just end up falling flat, and in turn Cars 2 falls short of being a memorable Pixar feature and that's a shame because this film really could have been good. I really enjoyed the first film because it relied on a simple story and the characters were likeable and the film was funny. This film is just a case of being way too ambitious and in turn there's little structure to make this film stick together. There is nothing here to really salvage the film, and it ends up falling short. In turn, this film dumbs down on what the first film did so well. In the end, this is just a disappointing movie that should have kept to the basics, instead of making things complicated and making mater such an irritating character in the first place. Cars 2 is forgettable.