First Cars 2 Reviews Surface

With just under a week to go until the North American release of Cars 2 (all of us in the UK will, unfortunately, have to wait until July), the first reviews are beginning to surface, and they, generally, seem good.

Two reviews in particular that seem to be very positive in view of the film are from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. Variety cites Cars 2 as "The rare sequel that not only improves on but retroactively justifies its predecessor", claiming "If "Cars" was perhaps the least engaging of Pixar's hugely successful animated features, John Lasseter and his team have hit the creative accelerator with the unexpectedly delightful "Cars 2."" This review sounds very promising and you can read the full, but spoiler heavy, review here.

THR seems to be similarly impressed, saying that Cars 2 features "cooler cars and more action than Fast Five", but also says that "Cars 2 is notably less refined and more rambunctious than Pixar’s recent run of artistic gems". Again, you can read THR's full review of Pixar's latest film here.

From  what I can glean from reviews (there's also a few over at Rotten Tomatoes), the general consensus, so far at least, seems to be that this still isn't Pixar's strongest effort, but most seem to agree that it is leaps and bounds better than the original Cars.

Update

Reviews are now looking decidedly less promising, as Cars 2, currently holds a 55%, Rotten, rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This certainly doesn't look good for Pixar and it could very well be there first Rotten film, however things can always change when the film opens on Friday.

Fingers crossed.

Update No. 2

Be worried. Only one day away from its North American release, Cars 2 has plummeted to 38%. This seems to be an incredibly negative response, however, reading some of the reviews, I believe Cars 2 isn't getting a fair looking. Cars 2 seems to be being reviewed, not on its merits as an animated film, but against other Pixar films; of course it's going to suffer by this comparison. However, there is a very positive sounding review from arguably one of the most influential reviewers on the planet, Roger Ebert, who gave the film as 3.5 out of 4.
Things aren't looking a lot better on review aggregator, Metacritic, which currently holds Cars 2 at 60.