Lightning McQueen (voice by Owen Wilson), Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), Sally (Bonnie Hunt), and the rest of the gang from Radiator Springs return to the screen in this sequel to Pixar's Cars (2006). But instead of evoking a nostalgic vision of Route 66 through the American Southwest, director John Lasseter and his artists spoof James Bond films in a fast-paced adventure that mixes espionage and road racing. After a successful season on the track, Lightning is looking forward to some rest at home, but Mater gets him involved in an elaborate three-part international race sponsored by Sir Miles Axlerod (Eddie Izzard) to promote his new synthetic auto fuel. While serving on Lightning's pit crew, Mater inadvertently gets mixed up with two British secret agent cars, Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer), who are investigating a plot to sabotage the race. Myriad complications ensue before Lightning and Mater get back to the (relative) peace of Radiator Springs. The Pixar artists clearly had a lot of fun spoofing locations in Tokyo, London, Paris, and the Italian Riviera, and creating auto versions of sumo wrestlers, kabuki actors, Queen Elizabeth II, and a doting Italian mother. The use of 3-D adds adrenaline to the racing sequences. Cars 2 lacks the emotional impact of Toy Story 2, Up, and most of the other Pixar features, but that will do little to lessen its appeal to its target audience, boys who love cars, driving games, and car toys. Cars 2 is screening with Toy Story Toons: Hawaiian Vacation, a new short with Woody, Buzz, Barbie, Ken, and the rest of the Toy Story gang. (Rated G: minor toilet humor and a few scary moments.) --Charles Solomon

Related Products

More Pixar Movies

More Cars

Cars Toys

Versions of Cars 2 on Blu-ray and DVD

Title	Cars 2 DVD	Cars 2 (Two-Disc Blu-ray / DVD Combo in Blu-ray Packaging)	Cars 2 (Two-Disc Blu-ray / DVD Combo in DVD Packaging)	Cars 2 (Five-Disc Combo: Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Copy)	Cars Director's Collection ( 11-Disc Blu-ray 3D / Blu-ray / DVD / Digital Copy)
Release Date	11/1/2011	11/1/2011	11/1/2011	11/1/2011	11/1/2011
Format/ Number of discs	One Disc: DVD	Two Discs: Blu-ray + DVD	Two Discs: Blu-ray + DVD	Five Discs: Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy	11 Disc Total Cars includes: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales includes: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy Cars 2 includes: Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray + BD
Blu-ray 3D	No	No	No	Yes	Yes (On Cars 2 Only)
Blu-ray	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DVD	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Digital Copy	No	No	No	Yes	Yes
Bonus Features (Bonus Material Not Rated)	Theatrical Short - Toy Story Toon:  Hawaiian Vacation All-New, Exclusive Cars Toon: Air Mater Director Commentary *Not available in all territories. Features subject to change	Same as DVD *Not available in all territories. Features subject to change	Same as DVD *Not available in all territories. Features subject to change.	Same as DVD plus: Nuts and Bolts: A Sneak Peek of Cars Land     World Tour – Interactive Map Deleted Scenes Short Documentaries Set Explorations from the Different Cities in the Movie *Not available in all territories. Features subject to change.	Same as DVD plus: Nuts and Bolts: A Sneak Peek of Cars Land     World Tour – Interactive Map Deleted Scenes Short Documentaries Set Explorations from the Different Cities in the Movie And More! *Not available in all territories. Features subject to change.

Click Here for more information on Cars 2.

Despicable Me is a compelling animated comedy about an aging supervillain's falling popularity at the hands of a younger supervillain and three young orphan girls. Gru is a true, bad-to-the-core evildoer who's earned the title of the world's No. 1 supervillain. But when young upstart Vector steals the Pyramid of Giza, Gru's status suddenly sinks to No. 2. Gru counters his fall by speeding up his plan to shrink and steal the moon, enlisting the help of his army of minions and the elderly Dr. Nefario, but a lack of funding and the difficulties involved in stealing the needed shrink-ray gun threaten to derail everything. Adopting three young orphan girls is an unlikely, but seemingly effective means to further Gru's evil mission, but Gru quickly discovers that caring for three young girls is more work, and distraction, than he could ever have anticipated. What unfolds is an unexpected shift in attitude that will forever change the lives of Gru, Vector, and all three young girls. A visually appealing film produced by Chris Meledandri (Ice Age, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown, and Horton Hears a Who), Despicable Me is full of weirdly shaped characters and settings that are somehow a perfect fit for Sergio Pablos's story. What's especially refreshing is that in this film, 3-D effects are used skillfully and effectively: even when the effects are exploited for comic reasons, they don't become a distraction, as is all too common in many recent movies. The film is full of corny banter and silly antics that inspire plenty of spontaneous laughter, and the minions, while not the best-developed characters, sure are comical. Ultimately, there's also a wholesome message about following one's heart. Steve Carell is the perfect villain-gone-soft in his role as Gru, Jason Segal is quite funny as Vector, and Julie Andrews makes a surprising appearance as Gru's very un-motherly mom. The story isn't new, the humor is relatively juvenile and somewhat forgettable, and it's no Toy Story 3, but Despicable Me celebrates silliness in a way that's satisfying and highly entertaining. (Ages 6 and older) --Tami Horiuchi

In resourceful orphan Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield, an Oliver Twist-like charmer), Martin Scorsese finds the perfect vessel for his silver-screen passion: this is a movie about movies (fittingly, the 3-D effects are spectacular). After his clockmaker father (Jude Law) perishes in a museum fire, Hugo goes to live with his Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone), a drunkard who maintains the Clocks at a Paris train station. When Claude disappears, Hugo carries on his work and fends for himself by stealing food from area merchants. In his free time, he attempts to repair an automaton his father rescued from the museum, while trying to evade the station inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), a World War I veteran with no sympathy for lawbreakers. When Georges (Ben Kingsley), a toymaker, catches Hugo stealing parts for his mechanical man, he recruits him as an assistant to repay his debt. If Georges is guarded, his open-hearted ward, Isabelle (Chloë Moretz), introduces Hugo to a kindly bookseller (Christopher Lee), who directs them to a motion-picture museum, where they meet film scholar René (Boardwalk Empire's Michael Stuhlbarg). In helping unlock the secret of the automaton, they learn about the roots of cinema, starting with the Lumière brothers, and give a forgotten movie pioneer his due, thus illustrating the importance of film preservation, a cause to which the director has dedicated his life. If Scorsese's adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret isn't his most autobiographical work, it just may be his most personal. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Science-fiction features often involve time travel or strange worlds. In Christopher Nolan's heist thriller Inception, the concepts converge through the realm of dreams. With his trusty associate, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a fine foil), Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio, in a role that recalls Shutter Island) steals ideas for clients from the minds of competitors. Fallen on hard times, he's become estranged from his family and hopes one last extraction will set things right. Along comes Saito (Ken Watanabe, Batman Begins), who hires Cobb to plant an idea in the mind of energy magnate Fischer (Cillian Murphy, another Batman vet). Less experienced with the art of inception, Cobb ropes in an architecture student (Ellen Page), a chemist (Dileep Rao), and a forger (Tom Hardy) for assistance. During their preparations, Page's Ariadne stumbles upon a secret that may jeopardize the entire operation: Cobb is losing the ability to control his subconscious (Marion Cotillard plays a figure from his past). Until this point, the scenario can be confusing, since the action begins inside a dream before returning to reality. Then, after the team gets to Fischer, three dream states play out at once, resulting in four narratives, including events in the real world. It all makes sense within the rules Nolan establishes, but the impatient may find themselves much like Guy Pearce in Memento: completely confused. If Inception doesn't hit the same heights as The Dark Knight, Nolan's finest film to date, it's a gravity-defying spectacular to rival Dark City and The Matrix. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

The larger-than-life personalities of Oscar nominees Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah help to buoy Joyful Noise, a lightweight comedy-musical about two strong-minded women who clash over the direction of a small-town church choir. The friction is set in motion by a surprisingly callous bit of business, in which Parton is informed by her pastor (Courtney B. Vance) that the church board has planned to deny her the position of church choir director, recently vacated by the death of her husband (Kris Kristofferson), in favor of Latifah. Never mind that the announcement is made at Kristofferson's funeral service, where one might assume that even a woman with such inordinate spunk as Parton might be in a state of grief; it's one of never-mind-the-details-let's-get-to-the-singing decision that writer-director Todd Graff (Bandslam) makes throughout the picture, which renders much of the film's many dramatic elements somewhat facile. And there are quite a few elements from which to choose, including a romance between Parton's cocky grandson (Jeremy Jordan) and Latifah's daughter (Keke Palmer), Latifah's Asperger's-afflicted son, or any of the genuinely silly issues involving the choir members. Joyful Noise is ultimately a mess of loosely connected elements that viewers are asked to accept in a particularly haphazard arrangement, but for many, the storyline will be a tolerable bridge between musical numbers, which admittedly are the film's strongest selling point. Thankfully, these are in good hands, with veteran producer-composer Mervyn Warren (The Preacher's Wife) handling the score and gospel powerhouse Kirk Franklin in the cast, and both Parton and Latifah get to display their formidable vocal talents. But it's a long and largely tiresome slog to these moments, which may have viewers making frequent use of their player's fast-forward button. Extras on the Joyful Noise Blu-ray are also fairly slim, with talking-head interviews with Graff and his stars balanced by extended musical numbers and a live clip of the cast and singers at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. --Paul Gaita