Movie Review: Cars

The latest Pixar film is Cars. It's a world of anthropomorphic cars of all shapes, ages, and conditions. Cars opens with a NASCAR-like race filled with camera flybys, whizzing cars, crashes etc. All great stuff and the animation is amazing. The TV announcers introduce us to the 3 leading race cars, the aging champion (voiced by Richard Petty), the always number two (Michael Keaton) and the up-and-coming hotshot. The star of the film is the hotshot, Lightning McQueen, who finds himself lost and trapped in Radiator Springs, a small town bypassed by the interstate and forgotten. Here he learns the importance of caring about others before the big race at the end.

The voices were really well done. Owen Wilson has this perfect boyish charm that almost made the hotshot sympathetic while he was still in the self-centered obnoxious phase. Paul Newman plays the wise old Doc Hudson. Bonnie Hunt did fine as Sally Carrera the Porsche love interest. It's odd, while she'd be too old to play the role in a live action film, she shouldn't be to voice it, but knowing that was distracting. Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, George Carlin, and John Ratzenberger all do well adding their distinctive voices to the cast.

It's a more predictable story than other Pixar films and at just under 2 hours (same as the Incredibles, 15 minutes longer than Finding Nemo and almost a half hour longer than Monsters Inc.) that makes for a long middle. I thought it was hurt by the fact that the lead is off-putting until the lesson is learned. Others I saw it with thought the fact that characters were cars made it harder to related to, though I didn't find it so. Ebert thought that without a child role it was missing something. Nevertheless there are some very funny bits involving tractors. As usual, there were a few times I was the only one laughing. On DVD I'll have to slow down a scene but I think they drive by the cast of the Oscar winning 2000 Pixar short For the Birds.

The 4 minute opening short One Man Band was a lot of fun. It was nominated for best animated short last year but lost to The Moon and the Son. You'll sit through the credits because they show extra scenes throughout them. They spoof other Pixar films and I think these were the funniest scenes in the movie. Cars is one of Pixar's weaker films, but that still makes it a fun.