Fast flowing family fun

Rating: 7/10 (24 August 2008)

In one of Pixar's most under-appreciated film, a race car gets lost on the way to the biggest race of his life, and winds up in a town where he learns the meaning of life.
With the opening montage of a race car getting himself geared up for a race, audiences are invited into a fast and flowing animation which doesn't match the peak of Toy Story or Wall-E, but is entertaining throughout.
Pixar have been there or thereabouts with every film they have released in the past decade, with hit after hit, and this family adventure is up there with the others, but falls slightly due to an annoying central protagonist and a fair amount of predictability.
Lightning McQueen is stubborn, unfunny, egotistical and negative; everything that can be annoying about in a character is justified by the race car. McQueen is partly the reason why this film doesn't match the class of other Pixar films. Toy Story had the funny and courageous central character Buzz, Wall-E had a lovable lonely robot, and even without a great central character, others have fallen on support characters, such as Dory in Finding Nemo. Other cars which include Sally, Mater and Luigi save the film with funny physical moments, especially the tractor sequences.
The ideology of friendship is heart-warming and beautiful to watch all the way through as we watch McQueen face new challenges in his personal life.
The visual effects are stunning as you would expect from the best animation team in the world. The direction does the graphics justice with a fast and flowing style from Lasseter.
The plot does follow many conventions, but has a laugh along the way and the likability of the support characters and the general ideology of the plot with twists and turns, quite literally at the end, are enough to cement it as a good animation, which is fun and likable for the entire family.