"Cars" Review

As I’m something of a Pixar aficionado, I felt it was my duty to go out and see their latest picture “Cars” yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t a bit nervous that it was going to be a bad movie. I mean, hey, it’s Pixar, right? They’ve been animating for 20 years and making good movies for eleven (yes, Toy Story is eleven years old now.) But maybe I should have been a bit nervous because they were recently acquired by the evil empire: Disney. That fact, I think, is going to be the eventual demise of the animation studio, sooner or later. But it appears that this film was too far along for Disney to have messed it up.

Pixar has a sort of formula for making movies, I think. They simply find a different perspective on a relatively normal issue. For example, the movie Finding Nemo was essentially about child-parent relationships, but seen through the eyes of fish. This is a great formula not only because it has worked so well, but also because what it does for the audience. On one level, the older audience can identify with the personified characters’ very humanlike emotion and behavior whether they be toys, fish, monsters, bugs, or… superheroes. On another level, the unique approach to the situation allows for wonderful humor.

This film is no exception from that formula and that’s a good thing. Obviously, there are tons of car jokes (and lots of other hilarious pop-culture references.) As for the humanlike characters’ story? Cars focuses on a megalomaniac racecar named Lighting McQueen (which, indecently, I think is a very cheesy name.) Lighting is out to win the Piston Cup which is something like Nascar’s Nextel Cup. On his way to California for a final race, Lighting ends up stuck in a Podunk little town call Radiator Springs (reportedly the “cutest little town in Carburetor County.”) Through its inhabitants, Lightning learns the values of teamwork and selflessness.

One thing disappointed me about the film and that was its lack of restraint. No, it’s not nearly as bad as some of those ill-humored Dreamworks animated movies, but Pixar’s kicked it up a notch. There are a few wink-wink moments of bad humor to older audiences and even two utterances of bad language. I was quite shocked, not only because it’s a Pixar movie, but also because it’s “G” rated. I also could have done without some of the country-esque music.

That aside, Cars is very much worth seeing. I’m quite certain that it is either the best or second best summer movie of 2006 (which, come to think of it, isn’t saying all that much) and definitely the best family movie of this summer (which is saying even less.)

So… um… go see it if you want. It’s good. And be sure to stick around into the credits. It’s probably the most hilarious part.