Cars - Preview & US reaction
Preview by Jack Foley
WITH every new Pixar release, there’s always the question: “Can they possibly continue to maintain such high quality.”
Hence, Cars rolls into cinema theatres hoping not to become the first animated project from that studio to stall on the grid.
Directed by John Lasseter (Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug’s Life), Cars follows the fortunes of Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a hotshot rookie race car driven to succeed.
When he unexpectedly finds himself detoured in the sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs, while on route across the country to the big Piston Cup Championship in California to compete against two seasoned pros, McQueen must get to know the town’s offbeat characters.
These include Sally (a snazzy 2002 Porsche voiced by Bonnie Hunt), Doc Hudson (a 1951 Hudson Hornet with a mysterious past, voiced by Paul Newman), and Mater (a rusty but trusty tow truck voiced by Larry The Cable Guy).
Needless to say, this bunch of misfits help Lightning realise that there are more important things than trophies, fame and sponsorship.
For Lasseter, Cars reflects his personal love of cars and racing, as well as a variety of issues that were near and dear to him.
“I have always loved cars,” he explains. “In one vein, I have Disney blood, and in the other, there’s motor oil. The notion of combining these two great passions in my life – cars and animation – was irresistible.
“When Joe [Ranft] and I first started talking about this film in 1998, we knew we wanted to do something with cars as characters. Around that same time, we watched a documentary called ‘Divided Highways,’ which dealt with the interstate highway and how it affected the small towns along the way.
“We were so moved by it and began thinking about what it must have been like in these small towns that got bypassed. That’s when we started really researching Route 66, but we still hadn’t quite figured out what the story for the film was going to be. I used to travel that highway with my family as a child when we visited our family in St. Louis.”
The result is a film that’s tailor-made to delight kids and adults once again – although the reaction hasn’t all been positive in America.
Variety, for instance, noted that ‘despite representing another impressive technical achievement, it’s the least visually interesting of the computer-animation boutique’s movies, and – in an ironic twist for a story about auto racing – drifts slowly through its semi-arid midsection’.
While the Philadelpia Inquirer declared that ‘Pixar finally rolled out a clunker’.
But such negativity was few and far between. The Hollywood Reporter, for instance, wrote: “While the other guys are still hawking talking animals, the folks at Pixar continue to up the anthropomorphic ante with terrific characters and crowd-pleasing storytelling that are as much a part of the company’s much-deserved success as all that state-of.”
And Entertainment Weekly opined: “A work of American art as classic as it is modern.”
But Rolling Stone gets the final say, declaring: “Fueled with plenty of humor, action, heartfelt drama, and amazing new technical feats, Cars is a high octane delight for moviegoers of all ages.”
The film opens in the UK on July 28.