Surprisingly deep, and wonderfully entertaining...

Rating: 9/10 (9 July 2006)

I'll admit it: I was frightened to see this movie. The trailer was ridiculous and cringe worthy. Thankfully, this movie has almost no relation to it's trailer. It's dazzling, fun, and quite frankly, the best movie I've seen this year.
We open with our hero, Lightning McQueen (what was his mother thinking?), racing for the Piston Cup. Conveniently, the race is a three way tie so, a tie-breaker is held in California. On his way there, however, McQueen gets arrested in the small town of Radiator Springs. What happens from here is typical Pixar fare: Hero learns to be a better person and make friends. What is more interesting here, is the story, within the story. It's what's implied throughout the movie; the surprisingly deep story about how society has become too fast paced. It's about taking things slow and stopping to smell the roses. That is the great triumph of Cars' screenplay; the surface story serves only as a Trojan horse.
This entire movie meshes perfectly. Everything, the music, story, acting, direction is all wonderful. More amazing than anything, however, is the animation. It's jaw dropping on more than one occasion. Everything from the dirt flying off McQueen's tires, to the car models themselves (besides Pixar, who else could make a car replica of Jay Leno look so much like him?) is fantastic. It's simply dazzling.
There are so many scenestealers in this film, it's hard to tell who's the best. The most noticeable is Mater. Larry the Cable Guy, who I despise with my every breath, gives an honest and hilarious performance. It's an amazing feat that he won me over. While Mater is the most noticeable character, he's certainly not the best. Owen Wilson (another one I hate) was excellent as McQueen as well. He's just enough of a jerk starting out, so at the end of the film, you're really glad to see his character progression. My favorite character was Luigi, Radiator Springs' body shop owner. Tony Shalhoub gives a wacky, over-the-top performance that I fell in love with. Bonnie Hunt is nice, but her brilliant comedic talent is woefully underused. I'm a little upset that she had to play the straight person. Another one to mention is Paul Newman. He's very nice, and very subtle here. Excellent job, Mr. Newman.
Movie like this don't come around often. When something this good comes around that appeals to both kids, and adults, jump on it. While I love Finding Nemo to death, the rest of Pixar's films are kids movies. Cars, however, is not. In fact, it leans more to side of being a G rated movie for adults, that kids happen to like. Even if you don't have children, Cars is a dazzling ride that's not to be missed by anyone.