Friday,
June 09,
"Cars": The
Movie; Grand Summer Ride with Guido, Brilliant Italian Mechanic
The
ANNOTICO Report
It
is the best animated film since "The Incredibles,"
no question. However, "Cars" is no kind of breakthrough. It's a
bit too cool and clichйd. In fact, it's
arguably the weakest film ever made by Pixar.
But so what? Pixar's worst is anybody else's best. and "Cars" is a grand summer ride.
Italians
will be relieved that it is wonderful Family Fare, that
has a Positive Italian Character in the form of an Italian Mechanic named Guido
(Guido Quaroni), who displays brilliant gadget
moves and delightful touches.
Carrific
ANIMATED
WONDER MAY FEEL MECHANICAL, BUT IT STILL EARNS A VICTORY LAP
The
Tom Long
Film Critic
It
is the best animated film since "The Incredibles,"
no question.
The look is
breathtaking, the attention to detail fascinating. The characters are familiar
and lovable; the themes will resonate with Americans of any stripe and the
voices are cunningly cast. Even the music is pitch-perfect.
And yet the thing
about "Cars" is it's about cars.
On the one hand,
this should work great: Cars make great toys; they come in all manner of
different design; they can be repainted, and small ones should fit conveniently
into bags stuffed with fast food.
The
cross-marketing potential would seem to be huge. And there's no denying,
especially here in
But cars, even
cars brought to life by the brilliant animation studio Pixar,
don't have arms to hug. They don't have fuzzy fur or cute outfits and they
don't at all look like people. Teddy bears look like people, bugs look like
people, robots look like people. Even fish and sharks, posed the right way,
look a bit like people.
Cars, even with
eyes on their windshields and grins on their grilles, look like automobiles.
They just don't exude warmth in the way, say, a cowboy doll can.
This perhaps
not-so-slight misgiving aside, "Cars" is every bit as brilliant as
you'd expect, and a lot friendlier than previews have indicated. It's touching,
it's funny, it offers cautions about the modern pace of life, and it depends on
a sense of rural
Of course, we're
supposed to be absorbing and appreciating this old-fashioned soul while packed
into hyper-modern movie multiplexes, positioned alongside strip malls littered
with fake-nail salons but that's precisely why movies such as "Cars"
serve a purpose. They pretend a world that's long gone can be born again.
Being born again
in "Cars" is one Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), an
egocentric race car with great ambitions and no real connections beyond his
headlights. He's being transported to
That track takes
him to a darn-near ghost town called Radiator Springs, where Lightning ends up
on the wrong side of the law. Sentenced to repair the local road, the race car
gets to know the other automotive types who live there. He becomes friends with
Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), a redneck tow truck. He develops affection for
Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), a big city Porsche trying
to find herself out in the sticks.
And he uncovers
the secret past of Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), the wise car who helps, along with
all the other town folk, Lightning realize the importance of friends and
community.
Aw.
Well, yeah, aw. It works. Friends and community are indeed important, and if
"Cars" has nothing new to sell, at least it sells some old-fashioned
wisdom in a brand new wrapper.
Arguments can be
made that too many of the characters here cling to stereotypes. Mater is the
dumb, good-natured hick; Sally is the city creature who has come to appreciate
nature's beauty (quite a feat for a purely unnatural car). Doc
More worrisome
are a hippie-dippy Volkswagen bus (George Carlin) and a Latino flashy paint job
specialist (Cheech Marin). What, nobody could come up
with more original characters?
On the other
hand, nobody much will care, what with the brilliant gadget moves of an Italian
mechanic named Guido (Guido Quaroni), delightful
touches such as tiny bugs that are indeed miniature Volkswagen bugs and the
sheer physical impact of an animated sky that looks so real it fairly breathes.
Look,
"Cars" is no kind of breakthrough. It's a bit too cool and clichйd for its own good. In fact, it's arguably the
weakest film ever made by Pixar.
But so what? Pixar's worst is anybody else's best. And critical
reservations shouldn't keep anyone out of the theater because "Cars"
is still a grand summer ride.
You can reach
Tom Long at (313) 222-8879 or tlong@detnews.com.
Check out his blog at detnews
.com.
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