Movie Review: Cars

I just had to go to this conference in the mountains this past week, and I was alright with going. Sure, I was alone, but the drive was through some of the most beautiful terrain, so I had zero concerns as the roads twisted and turned, attempting to make me barf with motion sickness.

See, I hate driving. Three hours stood between me and the meetings. I stacked up on CDs and the portable DVD player for when I got there.

One hour in, I looked over and saw what I referred to in the past as a 'creamer truck. A long, silver cylinder being hauled by a Mack or a Peterbilt through the narrows of I-70. Behind it, I knew for sure, a bright red Mack followed.

And my mind flew back to seeing this title last week, when a Mack truck was doing the same thing...only making faces in the rear end of the silver cylinder.

Yes, after seeing this movie once, I memorized everything.

You see, in our neat little nation of ours, the car-culture rules. That is why this gas problem hits us so profoundly; this is why Europe giggles at us so.

We cannot help it, we love our cars. I hate driving. I LOVE my truck. My family's heart orders like this: my partner, my dog, my truck. Why is this?

The debate would be long on the philosophical, but I will point to this little movie that could. Cars exists because of our car culture; Cars streamlines that love into something just as magicial as every other Pixar title.

Pixar. As you know, Disney imploded it's feature animation unit and bought out this tiger of a studio. Six pictures later, the energy has not waned, keeping Disney in the limelight--and will probably keep doing so. Disney's older studio was just as good. With it's feature animation unit, Disney chose famed tales of different cultures, tooled and edited them and gave them a zing and spit them back out for the masses. The masses did not mind, for the stories were streamlined and highly creative on various levels.

Pixar was formed outside of their jurisdiction, and as such, was given a creative leeway that the feature animation unit could not enjoy. Not that it mattered--the themes picked by then-enfant studio were just as deep and meaningful as the main features. They each had a deep felt theme (some amoung them? Toy Story's undying friendships, the use of creativity in A Bug's Life, the famed 'quest' of yore becoming the focus of Finding Nemo) that was conveyed through the audiences ability to relate to the characters on screen. How does a human relate to bugs, toys, monsters and in this case, cars?

Damn good writing, that's how.

Remember that car culture comparison I noticed before hand? The authors of the screenplay must have noticed it too, for the people watching this film really do relate to the talking vehicles onscreen. In this Pixar outing, a young hotshot racer pulls a three way tie with an old retiring machine and another upstart. Having to move the race to California, the three board their trucks and head west on the Interstate. Our hero, with nods to Steve McQueen, is named Lightening McQueen accidently finds himself on the old Route 66 passage--and in the old town of Radiator Springs. He destroys the cities main throughofare and is sentenced to fixing it. The forced time forces him to slow down and realize that life in the fast lane does pay off as much as he wishes.

Okay, that's pretty deep for what has become, for many, a kids format for film. But Pixar pulls us in by starting first with a slam-bang opening sequence that, to my brain and eyes, was so photo realistic, peeling my eyes from the silver screen was not an option. From there, it, as Disney has trained them to do, relies on the actor's to truly act their parts--and by having big names this becomes the result in their entire bevy. Paul Newman came out of retirement to play a Hudson Hornet, dangnabit, he really does look like car, I'm afraid to say. Poor guy. His voice, all gravelly, even carries the sound of engine dying. Whoa.

The only drawback is that by showing what life is like 'in the slow lane,' the picture also slows--and with all the high energy in pictures beforehand, the audience loses that spark for a bit. It does return, but the pace is uneven.

Lastly, even the credits are good. Yes, entertainment even pops up during the credit. But with movies this satisifing, why would you want to leave? No one does, so they even give you fun stuff to watch then as well.

If we had more movies like this, boring summers would not exist.