Film Review - Cars 2

I'm on record as being a bona fide Pixar fan. Some may consider me biased- A Bug's Life, Cars, WALL-E, Ratatouille and even Up! all have their critics, but I adore them all. It certainly sours my opinion of rival animation studios' work (in particular the massively over-rated Shrek). But, for the first time, it's worked against them.
Their consistently brilliant output has been unrivalled, giving us colourful characters, visuals, dialogue and stories, all with an emotional wallop. The original Cars movie, despite its undeserved "boring" reputation, is no exception to this rule, and I'd encourage anybody to re-evaluate it. But yet... Something's missing in this sequel.
I can't put my finger on what, but there were times when the frantic action on-screen left me restless, rather than excited. We were all struggling to remember the new characters' names afterwards, and at times I could tell what was on-screen was amusing, yet wasn't finding myself laughing.
Whereas Cars was a beautiful, leisurely film that knew how and when to crank up the excitement, Cars 2 is as beautiful, but keeps its foot on the accelerator, so maybe it's this absence of light and shade? (How's that for mixed metaphors?)
The only emotional moment (a Pixar trademark) came early on, with a reference to the late Paul Newman's character from the first film- but this only has an emotional resonance BECAUSE of the first film.
Maybe I was in the wrong frame of mind, but I must agree (partially) with the critics- Pixar have delivered their first true disappointment.
But is it bad film? Not in the slightest. Visually, it's a feast. The intricate blink-and-you'll-miss-it details are all there, and the scenes in Tokyo and Milan are breathtaking. For the first time in ages, I wish I'd seen the 3D version of a film. The animation and design are flawless, and the themes in the score are wonderfully tongue-in-cheek, referencing spy movies of the past. Unfortunately, however, the sound mixing is off. There are times when the music could have added impact to a scene, but instead we get just a generic spy music backing track, overpowered by sound effects and/or dialogue.
Hopefully my opinion of Cars 2 will improve on later viewings, but for now it appears that this may be the first time Pixar won't appear in my annual top 10 films. At least Disney gave us Tangled this year.