Many of Pixar’s early hits relied on an easy hook: “What if our toys loved us?” “What if the monster in the closet was just doing his job?” “What would happen if two superheroes got married?”
And while it goes without saying that the skill of the storytellers deserves most of the credit for the success of these stories, there’s no denying the imagination of the starting ideas. Which is why Cars feels like such an outlier. The starting premise is simply a world in which humans are replaced by automobiles. And while that has the potential for some fun comic bits (and seemingly endless puns), it doesn’t exactly seem to lend itself to strong storytelling possibilities.
Director John Lasseter makes it work for the most part by focusing on the inherent nostalgia and romance that comes with cars. We are introduced to the world via hot-shot racing car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson), whose strongest desire is to win the vaunted Piston Cup race. Lightning makes for a fun hero, particularly for kids (and no Pixar movie has been geared towards young kids as much as this one). He’s red, shiny, and confident, and his massive ego gets punctured early and often enough to make him endearing.
On the way to a tiebreaker race in California, Lightning is accidentally jettisoned from his transport truck and finds himself stranded on Route 66 in the largely abandoned town of Radiator Springs. Due to a series of comic mishaps, he ends up causing severe damage to the main road in town, and is sentenced to fix it before he can leave. As he begins working on the road, he slowly grows fond of the little town and its quirky inhabitants.
So if you’ve ever seen a movie with a smarmy city-slicker being won over by a bunch of lovable bumpkins, you’ll know exactly where this story is going. But what Cars lacks in creativity, it more than makes up for in craft and characterization. This is one of the most gorgeous movies Pixar ever made, at times approaching photorealism. It’s funny, because the characters in this are (in appearance) some of the most cartoonish the studio ever conceived, with their bright colors and giant windshield eyes. But the level of detail achieved by the Pixar artists is astounding. These cars are made of metal, and they look like metal. Lasseter reportedly tasked the animators with making sure the bodies of the cars didn’t morph and bend like flesh. One can only imagine how much difficulty this added to the process.
The characters themselves also make the movie work. I already mentioned how little kids would be drawn to Lightning, but the town of Radiator Springs is also full of colorful and lovable weirdos. The town’s patriarch is a weary, grumpy old car named Doc Hudson (racing enthusiasts will appreciate the casting of Paul Newman in this role). Doc initially is distrustful of Lightning, and can’t wait to hurry the brash young racer on his way, for reasons that will be revealed later. Other actors popping up as the residents of Radiator Springs: Cheech Marin, Tony Shalhoub, Larry the Cable Guy, and George Carlin, among others. These actors stick to the recognizable personas that made them famous, which works just fine for this movie. Carlin goes back farther than any of them, reverting to the Hippy Dippy character of his early stand-up comedy career.
The other main character is a Porsche named Sally, played by the always great Bonnie Hunt. She features in my favorite section of the movie, as Lightning’s burgeoning feelings for Sally enable him to see the beaten-up old town through her eyes. The two take a winding drive through “Ornament Valley” (I warned you about the puns) as she gives him a history lesson about what a thriving place Radiator Springs was before the construction of a nearby interstate highway caused all Route 66 traffic to dry up.
Lightning’s growth as a character is played out gradually and never cheats the audience, which makes the payoff all the sweeter. I won’t spoil the ending, except to say that Lightning helps restore the town to some of its old glory, leading to a wonderful scene as all the cars cruise down the main drag, enjoying each other’s company under the neon lights. It’s as wistful and romantic a sequence as Pixar has ever given us.
Kids will no doubt be drawn to the character of Mater, played by the aforementioned Larry the Cable Guy. I won’t say much about Mater other than that he is clearly designed to appeal to the very youngest viewers. A little bit of Larry the Cable Guy goes a long way, and it is with some dismay that I note his character seems to be the co-lead for 2011’s Cars 2.
But on the whole, his presence here was limited enough for me to enjoy the rest of the story. It’s not one of Pixar’s best, but that still makes it better than roughly 80% of the animated movies out there.
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