Mater’s ugly-Americanism may be “humorous,” but simmering below the surface of this story is the horrifying prospect of another kind of American idiocy taking hold around the world.

I speak of the American idiocy of “intelligent design.”

The universe of Cars 2 has been clearly and carefully constructed by the writers to be one in which -- unlike our universe -- the evidence for intelligent design is unequivocal. One major giveaway is that the car-people don’t have hands to make anything: not the buildings they live in, not the oil rigs they rely on for their food, not the uncarlike modifications a car-person such as British spy Finn McMissile (the voice of Michael Caine: Gnomeo & Juliet, Inception) uses in his line of work; Finn is practically a car-cyborg, and yet there is no one around who could have made him this way. One plot point turns on cars “made” with a certain kind of engine -- “Made by whom?” is the unasked question that hangs dramatically in the air.