CARS 2 (2011)
Pixar’s sequel to their inexplicably successful Cars thinks nothing of following up a story about lovable anthropomorphic cars learning about humility and friendship with those same cars suddenly shooting and bombing each other (huzawhat?). What’s more — and possibly worse — it teaches kids that not even the idealists at Pixar are immune from the “churn ‘em out, who cares about quality” Disney machine. In other words, the movie sucks.
And that exposes young brains to moronic, screenplay-by-committee storytelling. Are we overreaching? Not at all, and the plot of Cars 2 backs us up: A millionaire oil baron pretends to discover an alternate fuel source simply so he can stage an overly-elaborate worldwide race so that he can then use overly-elaborate schemes to discredit the fuel source he pretended to invent? Stick with Shrek.
THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS MOVIE (1987)
It might be harder to explain to today’s kids just what the hell Garbage Pail Kids were — they were amazingly gross ’80s trading cards, by the way — than to attempt to explain why someone, at one point, thought it was a good idea to make a kid’s film about them. That said, you’ll have some explaining to do about freakishly-proportioned baby monsters, controlling bodily fluids and functions in public, how it’s a terrible idea to eats toes and eyeballs (the alligator kid seriously does this), and why tearing off women’s clothing during fashion shows will inevitably lead to a stay juvie.
