a face-plant into a hot puddle of carburetor fluid

Rating: 3/10 (21 May 2006)

Cars
rating: 1.5 out of 4
It was bound to happen. After one-upping itself over and again with pioneers and masterworks like Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, there had to be a stumble. Pixar's track record couldn't be that good. We just didn't expect Pixar to take a face-plant into a hot puddle of carburetor fluid.
If an infant's picture book was the idea Pixar had in mind when they birthed this project, then maybe John Lasseter and his team deserve applause. Their film works on this level, refusing to smarten up or hunker down on any ounce of maturity. The fundamental error, perhaps, is that it asks us to relate to automobiles. Not just a world where automobiles keep their speech skills secret a la Toy Story, but a world made up entirely of cars. Even the flies swarming the light bulbs are VW Beetles. I can relate to superheroes, I can relate to fish, I can relate to monsters, I can even relate to bugs, but a machine that looks like my childhood Hot Wheels? Sorry. Giving a car googly-eyes and bumper lips does not make it human. And for that matter, the cars don't act human. The personalities of these characters mirror most of the characters I remember from a babysitting experience years ago, when I watched "Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends". They're broad and smeared with stereotype; kind, easy traits that reflect Cars' story.
It's the tale of Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) and his time spent in Radiator Springs, a backwater town that rests on the grave of Route 66. Stranded there a week before his big showdown with Chick Hicks (voice of Michael Keaton) and The King (voice of Richard Petty), Lightning gets himself mixed up with the locals and thrown into jail. The mayor of the town, Doc Hudson (voice of Paul Newman) and the prosecutor, Sally the Porsche (voice of Bonnie Hunt), sentence him to a road pavement job that will requires five days of work. Lightning's arrogant and huffy, steamed that he's stuck in a ghost town with the likes of Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) the rusty tow-truck, and Ramone (voice of Cheech Marin) the custom paint-job fanatic. But his stay turns therapeutic once he softens up to Sally and finds there's more to a car's life than endorsements.
Cars is, well, just very silly. Its story surrounds a life lesson, which is a formula that, when put to Pixar, stands a chance. Not a great chance, as central lessons tend to dilute otherwise human stories, but a Pixar-sized chance nonetheless. But the lesson turns infantile and the film moot, sullied probably by our enormous expectations. This stuff will work fine for your toddler, and maybe distract a wide-eyed nine year-old, but trying to compare it to The Incredibles is the only tear-jerking moment you'll have in the theatre. The art can be pretty, sure; but these days digital beauty is standard. And paired with the plastic-esquire car animations, the lovely backgrounds mean even less.
Luckily for Pixar, their films aren't known for being Thomas the Tank Engine look-a-likes. Cars, let's decide, can be Pixar's single use of the Get Out of Jail Free card. Now they're back to square one. Their revenues probably won't be dented by this hiccup, since everyone's still giddy from The Incredibles. But when Ratatouille (Pixar's next project) is released next Summer, the film will have its share of skeptics. Ratatouille is headed up by Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles--and hardly anyone from this Cars hack-job is on the projectso we can at least expect a move to square two. For now, however, Pixar can go sit in the corner, hiding beneath its dunce cap.