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2006
Cars
"Pixar theme" #7



I recall watching this way back in the day, right about when it came out I think, and I remember mostly enjoying it. But it didn’t take more than another ride through the drive-through before I realized that this wasn’t quite like the other Pixar’s… It felt a bit dull, tedious, over-long and under-aimed compared to the other catalogue titles. Apart from the simpler humor and approach, the animation was also oddly cartoonish and the characters awfully abrupt. Looking past the often impressive animation, ‘Cars’ occasionally felt like a direct-to-cable TV-movie, made for the Disney Channel, and not a feature length theater experience extending the already impressive Pixar catalogue…

Sure, beautifully executed minimalism in animation and simplicity in story can often be a good thing, but in the case of ‘Cars’, the story structure, especially, is an engine fail, bumping away on fumes with a visually unappealing look, despite of the up-to-date animation, which does look beautiful at times. The reflection in the cars and the color rendering, for example, is quite impressive. But in terms of the minimalistic approach, ‘Cars’ isn’t laps apart from the competition, which Pixar usually was when it came to animated movies. But, say, ‘Wall-E’ for one, is a prime example of simplicity done to perfection – both in terms of the dialogue-less opening and the characters of WALL-E and especially EVE, which worked both emotionally and the way that they evolved over time.

‘Cars’ does have some decent themes and morals, but I don’t think they explored them well enough – at least not in the best way – and for marking the 20th anniversary for the studio and being the longest Pixar film to date, it really didn’t say much.
A lot of people think this film is a winner worthy of its own Piston Cup, but I used to think it pissed on us as an audience, because of how they seemed to have dumbed down themselves from the great heights of previous efforts. That said, this rewatch was a smoother ride, though still so smooth it is like a lullaby at times.

As referred to earlier, the characters are perhaps the weakest of any Pixar movie made up until then; mostly consisting of clichés, going on stereotypical for what they are supposed to represent; there is the hippie, the hillbilly, the elderly, the Italian and the Mexican, who all annoyed me or even offended me to some extent. I never ever get “offended”, per say, about a stereotypical portrayal of person because it can still be funny and especially in animation it is an easy win for some slapstick humor or something like that. But ‘Cars’ completely crashed and burned with their approach and it almost seems as if they kind of realized how bad an idea it was to make all the characters freaking automobiles – even the flies in the air! – that they had to turn to overblown stereotypes to get some (forced) variation and recognition into their film… but I wasn’t taken by it. I wasn’t just sitting there like, “Ohhh I know what they are referring to here! How funny!” It was forced, uninventive and even stupid. It felt so pathetic, especially when “topped it off” by doing bad car references. Offended might be the wrong word to use here, but I guess the word can mean many things in relation to this so I will just leave it at that.

What works in the film is the opening and the closing segments, which involves an intense and important race and introduction of our characters and who Lightening McQueen is as a person… eh, car. A selfish, big-timer, who doesn’t appreciate the help or support he gets and only wants what is best for himself – something that comes back to bite him once he gets to Radiator Springs. Some segments work here, like when he has to do and re-do the road, the race against Doc and overall everything involving Doc. But there is a lot of dead spots here and to no surprise Mater voiced by Larry the Cable Guy is tiring and annoying. One of the worst comic relief characters ever created by Disney/Pixar. Then the film was saved once again by a conclusion of McQueen’s story arc and some closure to the town, as well as another intense race that changes McQueen for the better. Also, if anything, the beautifully rendered animation and another killer audio track makes this a passable experience…

+

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