A Car's Life 2

A Car's Life 2
And you'd think some viewers actually even go far to say that this film is still better than the already messed up average-rated Cars 2, but yet, here goes The Autobots, which is even worse than the two.
Genre: Action-Adventure Animation Comedy Directed By: Michael Schelp Produced By: Michael Schelp Written By/Screenplay: Michael Schelp Starring: Corinne Orr Sean Schemmel Jean Richards Release Date: July 18th, 2011 (United Kingdom) January 17th, 2012 (United States) Runtime: 1h 21m Prequel: A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure Sequel: A Car's Life 3: The Royal Heist

A Car's Life 2 (alternative title; or also known as just Car's Life 2 more commonly) is a 2011 animated movie by Spark Plug Entertainment. It is a direct sequel to the original 2006 film A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure and is overall the second film in the (A) Car's Life series.

Plot

Sparky is a spunky little sports car who can't wait to grow up, but first he needs to learn the rules of the road. Sparky snubs car washes, curfews, and speed limits, driving his poor dad to distraction.

Why It Crashed At The Road

1. It is a blatant rip-off of Cars 2 of the same sequel.
2. Major character disappearance: Sadly, Julia is absent in the film and isn't mentioned is any part of the film. Even in the next two sequels, she still doesn't appear again.
3. There is still filler.
4. Now major false advertising somewhat similar to Cars 2: The background of the poster is very identical to the original first film. It shows the "Flat Tire Customer" on the left, and an ambulance from the first film on the right. But in this film, they don't even appear at all. In addition, they also show duplicates of Sparky (before he got the modifications), Gracie with the modifications at the ending of the first film which didn't even appear at the Gas N' Go in the film, and Diesel in the old green paint before the design change. Strangely, Diesel on the background is seen lacking her mouth (or bumper). However, the background is also even shown on the main menu of the DVD as well too, and not actually only on the poster.
   • On that topic of Gracie's new look at the ending of the first film, she probably didn't like it after the events of the first film, so in this film, she comes back with a revised design, and lacks the stars and stripes and convertible roof (though this does make much sense since this film takes place after the first one).
     • However, the only visual part left from the new look of Gracie after that is her rear spoiler.
5. Many plot holes still but much LESS, like:
   • Why did Sparky forget to slow down, if Fender did ask to?
   • If Fender asked that Sparky did see a turtle crossing sign, then why did he ask that there was no?
     • Furthermore, on that topic, he even missed the left turn earlier and actually crossed over the turtle, which counts as a no too.
   • How did Sparky not see the dangerous red barrel of oil when Fender noticed at first?
   • Why did Sparky want to wear some weird-looking front bumper accessory something called a "Bump-Me-Knot"?
   • If Fender asked Sparky to take a right turn, then how come the arrow sign was pointing left, but Sparky took the left anyways?
   • Why does Sparky need a deep purple paint job with green and orange graffiti?
   • Why couldn't the robot cars use their hands to stop the wheel? Why did Norbert have to use the red barrel to stop it?
6. Again, much like from the first film, despite the improved animation, there are tire screeching/squealing sound effects programmed into the film, yet again, there are sadly still no tire smoke nor skid mark effects animated to them, and this makes it feels like that they are driving on ice!
   • There's no smoke effect still either when Sparky (or anyone else) drives on the desert surfaces either.
7. The soundtracks are still reused a lot, still bad and actually carried over from the first film!
8. In the ending, there is even an extremely dark and creepy animation error near the ending where Speedy and Zipper both clip through their basis while zooming in when Gracie is about to jump off a small ramp.
   • There are even still some other animation errors as well, like:
     • When Sparky passes the Auto Swag, the wheel speed increases themselves.
     • The film marks Walter's first-ever appearance, yet his face is creepily upside down, and has his mouth above his nose, which is just lazy! But thankfully, it was corrected in the next sequel, Car's Life 3: The Royal Heist.
     • At one point, Mr. Clinch can be seen also clipping through a construction sign.
   • Mr. Clinch's front left tire somewhat bounces when he shouts "Zipper! Hurry up!", despite this coming across as somewhat funny.
   • Diesel's gas pump was briefly missing a body at some point.
   • Officer Clutch puts a boot on Fender, but the boot disappears in a few moments later, then it comes back on at some point.
   • In one moment, when characters speaking, we see a car which arrives like from nowhere and passes through textures.
9. There was even dialogue that actually ripped off nor rehashed anything from the dialogue very similar to the first Cars film. For example, Sparky saying, "Your speed, maybe.", like how Lightning McQueen's famous line was "Speed. I am speed", and Fender saying "Gracie, stop driving like... your brother!".
10. There's even ONE character with a hardly understandable name too, which is specifically the large green car, whose name is completely impossible to spell and/or make out except his last name "Camshaft". But it may be "Cameron Von Camshaft" apparently. Even in the fourth and final film, A Car's Life 4: Junkyard Blues, we still have no way to figure his actual name spelling of proper grammar out at all. However, this could be unintentional as a challenge for you to identify his name on purpose.
11. The sound when Sparky revs his engine is apparently stolen from various sites online.
12. Bumper's moaning can still get irritating.
13. Despite Gracie's tolerance at this time, you are still able to think that it would be a male, but it's actually still a female, much like how she and Diesel was in the first film (although Diesel has less confusion).
14. More confusing logics: Besides Diesel smoking, it is shown that the cars can actually hold other things. However, the answer is yes since they use their wipers as their hands instead.
15. Again, bland and uninspiring climax.

Redeeming Qualities

1. One main success: Semi-decent, brighter, and more colorful animation, which is also a slight improvement too over the first film, and that's saying a lot.
2. There are similar scenes that are a somewhat of a funny nod to the first film but better. e.g., Sparky jumping at the beginning (but this time it's a rock instead of a pothole), etc.
3. Fender and Norbert are still likable in this film.
4. There are a few funny moments, like where Sparky talks like a GPS (Arguably the funniest scene out of all), or Sparky sneezing on the stack of oil cans.
5. The film is a slight improvement over the original, but not a lot much.
6. Good new voice actors and performances, like from Jim Woods as Bankermann and Officer Clutch. Officer Clutch sounds like Mr. Mackey from South Park after he got dental surgery. And thankfully, it's so very surprising that Speedy got a much better voice actor for good (even to Car's Life fans), which didn't sound as annoying as she was in the first film. Fender, Officer Clutch, Norbert, etc., are also decently voiced too.
7. Better character designs (like from Gracie).
8. Much better understanding of common sense, unlike the first film.
9. Better lip-syncing.
10. The "Gracie Springs Circus" scene with the "Jaws of Doom!" was pretty fun and enjoyable.
11. As said before, Gracie is more tolerable in this film.
12. The film truly reveals the names of some characters: Like, the purple Hummer turns out to be "Bumper", and especially, the police car turns out to be "Officer Clutch". It also even reveals the entire appearance and actual name of the owner of the Auto Swag "Otto" on-screen, despite that he was barely in the first film, and you could only take a listen to his voiceover.

Reception

IMDB currently rates the film at only 1.4/10, while Letterboxd rates it at 1.1/5.

Trivia

• This is the only Car's Life film to be released a year after Cars 2 then released in the United States.
• This is the first film in the series to remove the letter "A" in the title, as more commonly.
• This is the only film in the series to not have its own title.
• This is the first appearance of actual nighttime cycles since the drive-in movie theater scene in the first film.
• Dash is the only hidden character to have a speaking role heard, but not being physically shown on-screen as an actual appearance, much like Harv from Cars.
• Something that is also worth noting is that Fender and Sparky are the only characters who have not changed their design nor paint job in this film.
• Similar to the first film which there was a bird, the turtle is the only animal (non-vehicle) to appear.

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