It’s only June but this year Nathan Fillion already knows what his nieces and nephews are getting for Christmas.
“I have enough little kids in my life and they are all getting Sterling Hot Wheels for Christmas,” laughs the Cars 3 star.
In his second gig for Pixar — he also appeared in Monsters University — the Edmonton-born star lends his voice to the character of Sterling, a slick-talking coupe and CEO who becomes the new sponsor of racer Lightning McQueen.
“I had some of the classic toys,” he says. “The G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu Grip. The Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots and Smash Up Derby. Do you remember those? You’d pull the cord and wheel them at each other. Those are the fantastic toys I remember having as a kid. Otherwise it was Lego or a stick and your imagination. But to go from saying, ‘Isn’t this a neat little Hot Wheels,’ to actually being one? I can’t even.”
Fillion came to Cars 3 fresh off of 173 episodes playing mystery novelist Richard Castle on the crime comedy series Castle.
“As far as taking on a new character goes, the only danger is falling into any habits,” he says of leaving Richard Castle behind. “When you do a character for eight years there are things you will start to do habitually. I think a little more focus is appropriate to make sure you are not recycling anything from your last gig.”
The actor honed his skills on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. For three years he was Joey Buchanan, the son of original protagonists Joe Riley Sr. and Victoria Lord. His work on that show earned him a 1996 Daytime Emmy Award nomination.
“It wasn’t like one show a week,” he says, “it was every day. We didn’t do cue cards. I’ve heard rumours of cue cards. Even the older, older guys did not use cue cards. They were seasoned pros. Anyone who talks down on daytime (television), and I never will, has never done daytime. It is a mountain of work. It is 40 pages a day.
“It’s a muscle. It’s like you start doing pushups. If you do pushups every day for three years by the end of it you can do a lot of pushups. I’m pretty sure by the end of three years that memorizing, that taking of the words and letting them live, was a muscle I flexed pretty well.”
Despite guest spots on popular shows like Modern Family, Big Bang Theory and Desperate Housewives, he will likely always be best loved for playing the hilarious anti-hero Captain Malcolm Reynolds on Joss Whedon’s short lived but influential futuristic space western Firefly.
“It was almost 15 years ago that show came out and people are still loving it,” he says, “and dressing up like the characters. I will be sad on the day they stop doing that. If anyone wants to name their kid after my character on that show the kid will have to say, ‘Yes, I was named after a character on that show.’ Then there is a chance that someone may still watch it and love it and still dress up like that guy and I’ll still be relevant and everybody will be happy. Especially me.”
Five years ago, in my review of “Cars 2,” the animated adventure of anthropomorphic race car Lightning McQueen, I wrote, “The first “Cars” film was my least favourite Pixar film—until now.” With the release of “Cars 3” I have to revise that statement.
Pixar are the American masters of animation, the gold standard. In films like “Toy Story,” “Finding Nemo,” “WALL-E” and “Up,” to name a handful, they are wizards, able to weave a story out of pixels and terabytes about toys and other inanimate objects that make us care about them for the ninety minutes we’re in the theatre.
For me the “Cars” movies have always been the sore thumbs of the Pixar IMDB page. Wildly successful, they appeal to kids who enjoy the colourful characters, fast paced action and corny jokes, but there’s not enough under the hood. They have always struck me as fuel injected visuals with little depth in the story department.
“Cars 3” is no different.
“Cars 3’s” story sees champion racer Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) in the “living legend” phase of his career. An old school racer in a changing world his dominance of the track is challenged by hotshot Jackson Storm (Armie Hammer), the fastest car on the circuit since McQueen. “Champ here has been a role model of mine for years,” says Jackson, “trash talking and I mean a LOT of years.” To stay in the game McQueen adopts Jackson’s new school training methods, wind tunnels, treadmills, virtual reality and a multi million-dollar race simulator, under the watchful eye of trainer Cruz Ramirez (Cristela Alonzo).
When the high-tech racing preparation doesn’t work the pair seek out old timey trainer Smokey (Chris Cooper) to help McQueen find his lost mojo. In doing so they reconnect with the memory of McQueen’s mentor, Doc Hudson (courtesy of unused audio recordings of the late Paul Newman from “Cars”). Old style know-how trumps hi tech—like Rocky training on sides of beef, McQueen dodges bales of hay to increase his dexterity—which seems an odd message for a movie featuring state-of-the-art animation.
Padded with flashbacks and musical numbers to flesh out its thin story “Cars 3” feels more like an excuse to sell merchandise—the original generated more than $5 billion in swag sales—than a fully realized film. There are good messages for kids about self confidence and never giving up and the animation is terrific but it lacks the emotional punch that made “WALL-E,” “Toy Story” and “Up” so potent.
“Cars 3” brings much of what you expect from Pixar but seems to have left its heart at the junkyard. That’s not likely to affect audience reaction. The “Cars” movies have found permanent parking spots in many a family’s Blu Ray machine but for my money they belong on the used car lot.
“Once it’s said and done you’re glad it’s out,” says Dan Whitney, better known to comedy fans as Larry the Cable Guy. “You know, it’s another poster I can hang up in the house. So that’s kind of cool.”
Larry is referring to the poster for Pixar’s Cars 2, which prominently features his character, a tow truck named Mater. The friendly breakdown truck has a major role in the new film, accompanying his best friend, the race car Lightening McQueen, to a World Grand Prix race over seas.
It’s a far cry from his other films—Witless Protection or Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector—which were financially successful but critically lambasted. “I have a joke about this movie,” he says about Cars 2, “It’s the only time you’ll ever see me in a movie with the number two after it.”
This car trip started five years ago when he was offered a small role in the original Cars movie playing a character named Zeb.
“John [Lasseter] tells a great story about how he couldn’t find the right voice,” the 48 year-old comedian says. “They’d been through two or three hundred people and finally he said, ‘Go get that Blue Collar CD. Some of those guys I haven’t heard of before.’ I was the first one up and he dropped everything he was doing in the first thirty seconds and said, ‘That’s my tow truck. Get that guy on the phone.’”
The movie introduced his exaggerated Southern drawl to a whole new audience—kids. His Blue Collar Comedy tours, with fellow “redneck” comics Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Ron White, made him a star and one of the highest paid stand-ups in the biz but it wasn’t (and still isn’t) a show for the young ones.
“You have to be over 18 to come to my show,” he says. “I like to not include everybody. Look, if you want to go out with your wife and come see a more adult show with a comedian you like already, then you can come to my show. You can also take the kids to another project that I’ve done. I try to keep a good balance like that.
“I’m all about doing stuff for kids, and I tell everybody this. Eddie Murphy went from doing his stage act, which is 100 times dirtier than mine will ever be, to doing nothing but kid’s stuff. So it can be done. It all started when he had kids. Same with me. Before I had kids I never thought I’d do anything like this.”
He’s continuing to make movies with his children in mind—in January he’ll be starring in The Tooth Fairy 2—but it’s only been recently that his kids—Wyatt and Reagan, ages 3 and 4—caught on that dad was one of their favorite movie characters.
“When they were really little they couldn’t figure two and two together,” he says. “They had no idea but they had a little talking tow truck. You’d hit it and it would go, ‘Git-R-Done!’ or ‘My name’s Mater!’ that kind of stuff. Then one time I hit the thing and then I said it after the toy and they started crying. I don’t know if that freaked them out or what it did. Now, they walk around saying, ‘Mater’s my daddy,’ which is kind of cool. I told my little girl the other day, ‘You know you’re the only girl who can say that Mater’s their dad.’”
Cars are one of the cool things about the James Bond series. From Aston Martin DB5s with pop out gun barrels and a remote control BMW, the autos have been a big part of those spy stories, so I guess it makes sense to make a spy story actually starring cars, but will it make sense to the kids it is aimed at?
The twelfth Pixar film, “Cars 2” comes five years after the original won a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film. Once again, the story begins in the town of Radiator Springs, hometown to champion race car Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson), his pal Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) and a host of other anthropomorphic cars and trucks. The action begins when McQueen and his tow truck BFF leave town to take part in a World Grand Prix race. While McQueen tears up the racetrack Mater good naturedly becomes embroiled in a top secret case of international espionage involving alternative fuel, corny jokes—“Is the Popemobile Catholic?”—and lots of frenetic action.
The first “Cars” film was my least favorite Pixar film—until now. The original was expertly made and wildly popular but for my money, lacked the kind of emotional punch of movies like “WALL-E,” “Toy Story” and “Up.” The new film has much of what you expect from Pixar—like beautiful animation—but seems to have left its heart at the junkyard. For the first time a Pixar movie feels more like a cynical excuse to sell merchandise—the original generated more than $5 billion in swag sales—than a fully realized film.
Stories laden with carefully developed messages and themes have always been Pixar’s strong point, but “Cars 2” with its overly complicated narrative and hard to follow messages about the importance of alternative fuel sources misses the mark. Before seeing the film I would have guessed that if anyone could make a kid’s movie about “big oil” and pull it off it would have been Pixar, but I would have been wrong.
The colorful characters will likely have the same kind of appeal for kids, especially young boys, as they did the first time around but fore me the new car smell is completely missing from the sequel. “Cars 2” is a clunker.