Andy’s Rating: one notch below Loved It (12/13)*
Look, I’m not going to lie to you: I never bought in to the concept behind Cars. I mean, come on: talking cars? So there’s no people, and every is just a car? To me, that just sounds like an excuse to make all the silly little car puns that you see in the commercials, and to show off Pixar’s fancy new chrome and candy-apple-red textures. And the idea itself just didn’t sound compelling. I was convinced that this would be the first Pixar movie to not do as well at the box office, receive less critical acclaim, and send Pixar crawling back to Disney, begging for a deal. (Granted, that was before the big merger.) In short, I thought this would be the first Pixar movie that would cause everyone to say, “Okay, maybe they can make a bad movie.”
In short: Boy, was I wrong. More specifically, I was really, really wrong. At the very least, Cars is on par with the other Pixar releases. In fact, would say that I probably liked this movie more than half of the other Pixar films, which is saying a lot. (Some day I will go back and post my historcal ratings of past movies, but until then, trust me, they’re all pretty high up there.) Just to get this out of the way, there is nothing wrong with the visuals of the movie. Everything looks spectacular and clear and glossy and just as good as previous ones…better in many ways, since many of Pixar’s characters suffer from that plasticky look (e.g. Monsters Inc.). And as for suspension of disbelief, I got over that after maybe ten minutes or so. Sure, it’s strange to think of cars watching other cars race, but we watch other people in footraces, so I guess it’s not that odd. And yes, all the little clever car jokes are in there, and they’re never too gratuitous or goofy.
But honestly, the star of this movie is the story. Now, I usually try to keep my reviews fairly spoiler-free, and this one will be no exception. But to really explain why I liked this movie so much, I will have to spend some time discussing the themes of the movie, and maybe some don’t want to read that before seeing it. In deference to those readers, I will continue this review on the next page.
In terms of the plot, Cars is strikingly similar to the old Andy Griffith Show episode “Man in a Hurry,” which is considered by many (including me) to be the greatest episode of all time. In it, a businessman ends up stranded in Mayberry, and finds his always-on-the-go attitude at odds with the slow life of a small American town. Turn the people into cars, replace “businessman” with “race car,” and you have the basic plot of this movie. Sure, the fish-out-of-water plot has been used before, but this movie succeeds simply because of the emotions it evokes. In fact, maybe the use of cars was intentional, since cars are so intertwined with our culture, especially with feelings of nostalgia. From the Viper to the Impala to the Carrera, it is amazing how much of the character is revealed just by the type of car. Each vehicle is also lovingly rendered, and appears accurate as far as I can tell. For car lovers, this movie is very visually satisfying.
But besides the cars themselves, the movie engenders a deep sense of nostalgia about the American landscape: not the hills and forests, but the small towns and people who populate that great divide between large cities. And again, driving is a theme, as the busy, goal-oriented interstate is contrasted with the more leisurely roads like Route 66, on which the majority of the film takes place. More than anything else, this film is a love story to those various small towns which dot the landscape, but get overlooked by thousands of travelers each day in their great rush to get from somewhere to somewhere else. The movie encourages us to enjoy the journey, and not the destination, which again is what driving is all about. Take time to look at the road you’re on, and appreciate where you are while you’re there. As an elegant touch, the end credits list a number of stops along Route 66 which served as the inspiration for this movie.
I’m as technologically-oriented as the next guy, and I’m also very much a homebody who would much rather stay at home than spend time traveling. Perhaps the highest compliment I can make about Cars is that after seeing it, it has made me want to go on a road trip across the country (or maybe just halfway across; I haven’t decided yet). There is so much out there to experience, and I feel like I have only seen a small part of it. You have to love a movie that can make someone like me feel so deeply emotional about America, and about all the small towns that are just waiting for someone to drop by and visit, if only for a little while.
