‘Cars’ sequel runs out of gas quickly

For some reason, both “Cars” (G, 2006) and now “Cars 2” represent the most charmless creations of the great Pixar animation house. These worlds, populated by thinking, feeling, talking vehicles of all sorts — no humans involved — just aren’t that interesting, beyond the visual pizazz.

The gags are kind of cheesy, too. Even in car-land, it seems, leaking oil equals toilet humor. Kids 8 and older may still have fun at “Cars 2,” undoubtedly, but parents should note that it’s nearly two hours long, and The Family Filmgoer saw a lot of fidgety kids at a preview.

“Cars 2” takes the redneck pickup truck Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) and his best pal, champion racer Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), to Tokyo and then to London for a big race, where the clueless Mater gets mistaken for an American agent by an undercover British sports car named Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and his colleague Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer). They’re tracking a ring of evil race cars whose leader aims to discredit alternative fuels. Mater knows none of this, but proves accidentally helpful to the British agents.

The animators’ car-ification of Tokyo’s and London’s sights is clever, and the shiny 3-D car-acters look snappy, but the plot gets way too complex and caught up in references to old James Bond films and other spy tropes that kids will miss.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The action sequences — and remember they’re in 3-D — involve not only chases, but gunfire, torpedoes, and explosions. SPOILER ALERT: Near the end, there’s a ticking time bomb that threatens the protagonists.

“Green Lantern” PG-13 — This much-ballyhooed movie take on the DC Comics series turns out to be a bit of a yawner, despite a strong cast and snazzy laser-like effects — all very 3-D and very greenish. Teens and even some kids 10 to 12 may find that it passes a rainy summer afternoon well enough, though.

We learn about an intergalactic army, the Green Lanterns, pledged to protect the universe from evil. One of their numbers is injured and crashes to Earth. Before he dies, he sends his glowing green ring (the Lanterns are powered by universal will, embodied in green light) to find a replacement. The ring chooses hot-dog test pilot and irresponsible playboy Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), who flies for an aircraft company that makes jet fighters.

Hal is catapulted in a ball of green energy to the alien’s crash site, where the Green Lantern gives Hal his ring and lantern, then dies. Hal gets away before the military grab the body. College science teacher Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) is brought in to examine it. Hector’s infected by it, develops evil powers and becomes a misshapen villain.

Hal, meanwhile, is transported to the planet Oa, where the Green Lantern Corps trains. Their leader (Mark Strong) convinces Hal that he’s too weak — “only human” — to be a Green Lantern. But Hal soon finds he must use his Green Lantern powers (they can create any weapon through willpower) to protect Carol (Blake Lively), the boss’ daughter, and later the whole universe from the Parallax, a ginormous, spiderlike, evil entity.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The violence in “Green Lantern” is, for the most part, flashy and bloodless, though the alien’s injuries look a little gory. Later in the film, someone gets a hypodermic in the face. Characters engage in superhuman fights as well as regular dust-ups, along with mild-to-midrange profanity and mild sexual innuendo, including an implied one-night stand.