There's a class consciousness to the story that shows how "regular" workers like Wheely's fellow cabs can band together effectively to defeat a villain.
WHEELY 10 MOVIE
The best part of the movie is its message that people should never be dismissed or discriminated against because of their humble social status or blue-collar occupations. The voice cast can be a bit off-putting some characters have over-the-top accents that border on offensive, from the Mexican-sounding lowrider henchmen and the bucktoothed Putt Putt, who's portrayed as Asian, to the arrogant English alpha guy Ben (complete with British green racing stripes) and the criminal Jamaican cargo ship. Wheely, however, is just serviceable enough to make kids laugh, but not memorable enough to please parents - and certainly not child-free audiences who have no reason to see it. That's not to say that unoriginal movies can't be decent there are plenty of genre movies with similar themes and formulaic storylines, and some are well-executed. The similarities are a bit obvious: Gasket City instead of Radiator Springs, race car main character Wheely O'Wheels instead of Lightning McQueen, shiny sports car love interest Bella di Monetti instead of Sally Carrera, etc. But even if you discount the movie's derivative nature, there's little to make it more than a passing diversion.
It's difficult not to compare this adventure to the far superior Cars. Oh yes and at one point one car said to another “that’s why we don’t drink and drive” which is obviously something we need to spread awareness about in the world but my jaw dropped when it said that in a film aimed at little children. I just don’t understand why they put such odd messages and scenes in this children’s film.
It’s stereotypical too with the accents and car characters. The next thing, they throw the car in jail for illegal racing. The whole thing seems based on romance and flirting, girlfriends etc. Watch it and you’ll see what I mean and you’ll see the lines (I can’t fully remember but it’s similar to what I’ve written) it’s very very odd for a children’s animated car film. The male car was seemingly harassing the female with flirting, and saying things like “I just want to get down” etc or something similar, let’s just go together baby etc while the female tried to get him to leave her alone.
This film wasn’t too bad, my son seemed to like it, until there was a scene where these characters, a male and a female car were driving along in the dark. The characters might all be vehicles, but there are several identifiably racial/ethnic accents that are somewhat stereotypical, including Chinese, Jamaican, British, Mexican, African American, etc. On the bright side, the movie does have positive messages about treating people with respect regardless of their social status or occupation (main character Wheely is a taxi driver).
WHEELY 10 PLUS
There's also flirting and romance-based humor - e.g., jokes about a car being "fine" and another car being a ladies' man who needs to "settle down," plus more uses of "babe" and "baby" than is the norm in most kids' animated fare. Violent/scary elements include a menacing 18-wheeler with spikes, some dangerous-looking vehicles, several chases/pursuits, a car-napping, and a climactic fight that leads to a car character's fiery death. Parents need to know that Wheely is an animated talking-vehicle adventure that's reminiscent of Cars, but with a more aged-up plot that involves romance and an international crime syndicate of car-nappers.
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