Cars
It’s easy to take shots at the mega-successful. Sometimes it’s justified. As is the case with “Cars,” it’s a bit too much. I’ll conceed that of Pixar Animation’s seven films, it’s the least original in its’ execution, and the story’s as light as a feather. In tone, it feels more like 1998’s highly comic “A Bug’s Life” than the landmarks of the “Toy Story” films, “Monsters Inc.,” and the duel Oscar-winners “Finding Nemo” and “The Incredibles.” I can live with that. Even “A Bug’s Life” had some heart in it, and such is the case with “Cars,” which marks the first time Pixar’s head-honcho John Lasseter has been in the director’s chair since 1999’s “Toy Story 2” (Pixar’s peak in my opinion).
Scripted by a team of many writers (including Lasseter and the late co-director Joe Ranft, given a lovely tribute in the closing credits), “Cars” tells the story of a cocky racecar named Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson with his patented wit and disarming warmth; the name is a reference to the late Pixar animator Glenn McQueen), a rookie car on the Piston Cup circuit on his way to a championship race in California between an old pro just about to make his final pit stop (Richard Petty’s The King) and an arrogant veteran looking for his first championship (Michael Keaton’s Chick Hicks) when he gets separated from his truck (Pixar “rabbit’s foot” John Ratzenberger, also paid tribute to in a classically comic bit of inspiration by Pixar in the credits) on the fabled Route 66 in the rundown little town of Radiator Springs, home to a community of cars content with the downshifted pace of their lives. After he inadvertantly destroys the main road in the town, Lightning- with less than a week until the Big Race- is sentenced to community service to rebuild the road by the town’s patriarch, Doc Hudson (the great Paul Newman, a racing aficionado looking to end his career on an acting high with his soulful work here and a hinted-at, but unofficial, last live-action film, presumably with “Butch Cassidy” and “The Sting” co-star Robert Redford), is befriended by the hillbilly tow truck Mater (Larry the Cable Guy steals all of his scenes), and develops a crush on a Porsche named Sally (Bonnie Hunt, seductive and endearing) who used to live life in the fast lane before she made Radiator Springs her home.
Really, there’s not much more story than that (like I said, light as a feather), though there are classic Pixar set pieces like the night Lightning and Mater go cow-tipping in a tractor field, the chaos the next morning when the tractors roll into town, the downgear drive on the abandoned highway Sally takes Lightning on, the lovely musical montage (set to the James Taylor-sung “Our Town” by Randy Newman, whose Oscar-worthy song is more noteworthy than his sweet, but largely nondistinct, orchestral score) that simply tells the story of a town that time forgot, a dirt race between Lightning and Doc (a racing legend in his own right) that shows the youngin’ he’s got a thing or two he can learn from the old pro, and of course, the big race at the end where the rookie racecar puts into high gear all the lessons he learned from his adopted family at Radiator Springs, and redefines the idea of what a champion really is.
If there’s a message in Lasseter’s movie- which, like Pixar’s past successes, is more pure fun than Hollywood deserves to take credit for, and (in a lot of scenes) is actually a greater visual triumph for the studio than any of the earlier films- it was stated simply in the film’s trailer- “Life is a journey…enjoy the trip,” which is just Pixar’s way of saying that how you get to the finish line is more important than getting there. That’s always been Pixar’s uncanny gift in their films- you know where you’re headed (or at least, you can figure it out with even the most basic knowledge of Hollywood- and Disney- formula), but what matters most are the stops you make (and people you meet) along the way. “Cars” may be Pixar in low-gear (when it comes to story; they’re still speeding ahead of the pack visually), but when you spend so much time out in front, isn’t it nice to just kick back and relax creatively?
