A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure

A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure

CHILD ABUSE

Genre:	Family Comedy Drama Adventure
Directed By:	Michael Schelp
Written By:	Michael Schelp
Starring:	Corinne Orr Denise Finelli Glen Gomez
Photography:	Color
Distributed By:	Spark Plug Entertainment
Release Date:	November 21, 2006
Runtime:	40 minutes
Country:	United States
Prequel:	N/A
Sequel:	Car's Life 2

A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure is a 2006 American direct-to-video computer-animated comedy-drama film written and directed by Michael Schelp and produced by his company Spark Plug Entertainment. It was released on November 21, 2006.

Synopsis

Sparky is a young car who loves to go on adventures and never listens to his dad, Fender. After going to a dangerous spot, Sparky learns the moral of the movie - always listen to responsible people.

Plot

After Sparky and Fender visit their cousin Piston's grave, they visit their home, the "Gas-N-Go". Sparky going into a carwash after a long argument, meanwhile one of Fender's employees, Speedy, causes some mishap, like causing a pile of tires to fall, smearing motor oil on a customer's windshield, and giving another customer a flat tire, and giving said customer wrong tires, she almost quits. After getting washed, Sparky meets a sketchy jeep named Diesel. Diesel then tells Sparky if he wants to be cool, he should go to a car decoration shop named Auto Swag. After "pimping his ride", Fender gets angry at Sparky. Diesel then tells Sparky to go to drive-in movie named Hot Rod Heaven. While watching the movie, Sparky falls asleep. Then some gas sucking parasites named "gas leeches" then steal some gas from him. Sparky then confronts the leeches, and they surrender. The next day, Officer Clutch then tows Sparky to the gas station. Diesel then tells Sparky and Speedy to go to the Badlands (a place with no rules, no speed limits, and where the annual Champion's Cup is held.) After racing for a little bit, Sparky and Speedy then rest. The aforementioned gas leeches then suck the gas out of the two cars. Diesel then holds them hostage using a parking boot. A mutant pickup truck monster named Igor then cuts up Speedy into pieces. Sparky then tries to escape, but Diesel then holds him down. Clutch then fires a rocket launcher into Diesel, pushing her over. After Speedy is taken to the body shop and Diesel and Igor are taken to prison, Sparky, Gracie, and Fender then race to the highway.

Why It Sucks

The whole film is an obvious rip-off of Cars^GMW, and Sparky, the titular protagonist, is a knock-off of Lightning McQueen^GCW and Fender is also a knock-off of Doc Hudson.
Abbysmally bad animation
Poor looking textures, even for 2006 standards
There are repeated sequences and re-used animations through the movie, which feels very cheap.
Poor lip-sync.
There is a lot of filler in this film.
Wrong use of dialogue. Fender at one point says that it's getting dark even though it's broad daylight.
Poor dialogue; most of the characters talk like they're reading from a script. Some of the dialogue is also annoying, like when Fender keeps shouting "Sparky! Cut that out!".
Terrible character models.
According to the synopsis, the story is supposed to be "inspired by a true father-son relationship", which is not true.
Poorly-written story.
The music tracks are so loud that it's hard to hear what the characters are saying.
- The tracks are also reused a lot.
Half of the characters are completely useless and don't contribute to the plot, most notably Gracie, Sparky's sister.
There is an extremely pointless scene where Speedy is "helping" Bumper, as well as a scene where Bumper is "blinded" after Speedy uses oil, even though Bumper's eyes are not on her windshield, but rather on her headlights.
Countless plot holes.
- Why couldn't Sparky tell Fender that the Auto Swag and drive-in moments were set up by Diesel?
- Why couldn't Speedy and Sparky use the robot arms seen in the other cars to get off their parking boots?
- Why didn't the two notice Igor heading for them?
- How could Norbert manage to fit into Fender?
Annoying voice acting, especially Speedy's in the first film. She later got a better voice actor, and didn't sound as annoying like the first film.
Most of the characters are unlikable stereotypes; Sparky is the annoying kid that doesn't listen and thinks he's grown up, Speedy is the obnoxious girly-type character, Fender is the overprotective father (even though he's quite likeable, and Diesel is the person (or car) that seems cool, but has different intentions.
The title sounds suspiciously similar to A Bug's Life^GMW combined with PeeWee's Big Adventure.
Julia, the air pump, barely gets any screen time at all, and only has one line.
- Poor continuity, as she also doesn't appear in the next three sequels.
The predictability of Diesel killing Piston is not impossible to guess.
It was apparently so bad, three sequels were made (Car's Life 2 from 2011, The Royal Heist from 2013, and Junkyard Blues from 2017).

Redeeming Qualities

The scene where Sparky is about to sing, only for Fender to barge in and break the fourth wall by saying "This is not a musical!" Is actually pretty clever.
Sparky's father Fender is the only semi-likable character, since he's one of the few characters with any understanding of common sense.
It may be questionable, but the scene when Sparky is playing with his little sister Gracie by trying to make her laugh was somewhat heartwarming.
Fender, Gracie, Officer Clutch, and Norbert were decently voiced in the sequels. Clutch sounds like Mr. Mackey from South Park after he got dental surgery. Speedy sounds way better from the second movie onwards.
The sequels have semi-decent animation, better and more serious sounding voice actors, and major story arcs, like a barrel of oil, established earlier in the second movie, needed to destroy "The Jaws of Doom".
In one scene, Speedy shrieks "GAS LEECHES!!!" , which gardered slight meme status.