Much closer to the fast-lane than it is the hard shoulder, Cars is a neat and pleasurable animated excursion with an ability to sneak up on us.

Rating: 7/10 (19 September 2011)

Cars is a 2006 animated feature from that of the Pixar stable, they of that wondrous ability to seemingly breath life, indeed fresh air, into worlds given radically creative overhauls; in doing so, providing specific dynamics to a functioning and working universe featuring oft-inanimate objects now come alive and living with their own patriarchies and politics. When the process works, it can be enchanting; when it doesn't, the films can often grind one down – Cars is an instance in which the proverbial rabbit is pulled from the hat, and whilst not on a level with their best work, is easily one of the better films the studio has produced. Owen Wilson, lending his "talents" behind a microphone but instead off screen, voices Lightning McQueen; a sports car in an eye-catching shade of red operating within a world devoid of humans in which cars may speak; act and, excusing the pun, drive proceedings. McQueen is young and cocksure, a rookie within the career field of motor racing somewhat closely resembling that of NASCAR; plugging away at race after race in the long season and coming to find himself on the brink of winning the elusive Piston Cup, the prize for heading these standings at the end of the year.
When we join him, he is at the venue for the final race – the points level between he, the serial champion of the sport and a competitor often stuck with the runner's up spot on account of him. At the track, the stands are beset by an audience solely made up of cars and other vehicles; heaven only knows what might constitute as a Diamond League meeting in this universe. Whilst there, numerous company brands and labels are slapped all over cars; barriers and buildings, but they are fictional and what might have been easy product placement is pleasantly avoided. McQueen races and races well, but rejects the idea of teamwork and guns for all the glory all by himself when turning down a pit-in chance and the allowing of his crew to get involved: it's all about him and his glory.
The race ends in a remarkable three way tie between the front runners and a one-off playoff is announced between the three. We build an image of McQueen being somewhat of a vain, limelight loving showoff - a celebrity figure very much enjoying the verbal jousting with rivals and the gluts of attention which fly his way as the new hotshot following this remarkable first season. There is a quieter moment reflecting how far he's come when a certain sponsorship company is revealed to have once helped get McQueen off the ground; his moving onto larger plains and bigger companies whilst leaving the old one somewhat in the dark reiterating this inability to be anything other than self-centred and malevolent. Enter one or two good gags about cars operating within this world both falling asleep at the wheel and attempting to jump a level crossing, at which the trains are as anthropomorphistic as the cars are, and a road trip to the playoff race which goes horribly wrong when McQueen tumbles out of his pit team's truck and is left stranded in the wilds of America.
Where he ends up is a small town sweetly named Radiator Springs; his chaotic arrival born out of panic near-enough destroying it. Bossed by that of Paul Newman, lending his voice to a 1950's gag-guzzler, Doc Hudson, and populated by a mixture of stereotypical Italians, Mexicans, louder than life African American women and VW van's whom are hippies, McQueen is caught and kept to fit the bill of the damage. We spot what might happen whilst he's there, although crucially, enjoy those eventual places it takes us. Life away from the glitz; glamour and gaudiness of the track-side, track-set existence sees McQueen come to recognise the simpler, more down to Earth ways of certain others. He comes to make friends with a tow truck named Mater, whose friendship is one of an honest and grounded nature away from the strictly businified racing world ties. Through an equally young-as-McQueen-is Porsche named Sally (Hunt), we observe a strong and empowered female presence in the town whom achieved a fair amount in a specific career field herself; McQueen's interaction with her is a joyous observing of him manoeuvring away from fatuous pit-lane girls and Hollywood socialites and towards more grounded people.
Where one might say the Tom Tom navigation device is set firmly to where it's going to head from an early stage, we are surprised by the effect Cars comes to have on us. We foresee specific frameworks, anticipate character shifts and yet it comes to engage us to the level it does, often even coming across as quite moving. One could criticise the narrative frameworks for these things all day long – it is a churlish, fruitless exercise. Is 2009's "Up" much more than a film about a man coming into contact with the young boy he never had in life running in parallel with a father-figure that aforementioned boy struggles to find? Likewise, narratively speaking, is Toy Story much more than two binary oppositional components in character form thrust together and forced into recognising both one other as well as their own natures? Is Finding Nemo much more than a buddy-pic road movie that happened to be set underwater? In their barest forms, most of what overlies these films are sound and routine – when unfolded around great adventure and exuberance, they exude degree of charm difficult not to get caught up in. It happens again here.