Cars

On the way to the biggest race of his life, a hotshot rookie race car gets stranded in a rundown town, and learns that winning isn’t everything in life.

Review

It was friends and family who have children who suggested I write a review for Cars.  I must admit I found the task of writing this review challenging, mainly because I don’t have children so I had to remain subjective but also keep in my mind the target audience of the movie.  Disney/Pixar had up until this point always created a great balance that allowed both children and adults to enjoy their stories.  Obviously children would enjoy the fun animated characters and adults would enjoy the nostalgic feelings and memories of their own childhood with the occasional subtle mature joke. 

I personally felt that Cars leaned more towards creating a movie just for the kids.  I came to this conclusion based on 2 reasons.  Firstly, there are no human characters and therefore no one to relate to.  Toy Story 1 & 2, Monsters. Inc, Finding Nemo and the Incredibles all had human characters at some point in the story, so there was always a feeling that these fantastical stories were happening in the real world.  Yes, there was no human characters in ‘A Bug’s Life’ but you assume they exist. And secondly, because of the big cartoonish eyes on the Cars, as ridiculous as that might sound, the big eyes on the windscreen of the vehicles made the movie feel notably more childish.  

If you can look past this, Cars is a lot of fun and great family entertainment.  The voice acting is excellent and each character is really brought to life and you feel the energy that the cast have put into their performances.  My favourite is the tow truck ‘Mator’ voiced by ‘Larry the Cable Guy’, an American stand-up comedian who unsurprisingly is hilarious in this movie! Every word out of his mouth had me in stiches, his pitch, tone, and comedic timing just made him a stand-out character.   

The animation in this movie is outstanding! Pixar never disappoint in this department and the talent on show from the animators is nothing short of amazing.  Particularly the landscapes throughout the movie; the highways, desert, foliage, city lights, dirt and mountains, if you take the cartoonish animated cars out of the frame, it could almost be mistaken for real footage.  The textures, particles, shading and colour is visually pleasing.  Dreamworks, Illumination and Blue Sky have all made great animated movies but no one holds a candle to Pixar Animation Studios. 

If you are a fan of NASCAR then Cars is definitely a movie you should watch because the high speed racing gets the adrenaline pumping.  The camera angles really put you in the centre of the action, seeing and hearing the tyres screeching and engines revving builds your excitement.  On a side note, Cars has a good soundtrack so once you have watched the movie, I suggest you download the song ’Life is a Highway’ by Rascal Flatts, and play it the next time you are doing a long-distance drive or a road trip!

Excluding the sequels (because I have not seen them) Cars is my least favourite Disney/Pixar movie however, that’s not saying it’s a bad movie, it’s just the one I enjoyed the least and I would choose to re-watch others over this.  Had this movie been released when I was child then undoubtedly it would have been a favourite due to the silliness of the characters and their design, the brightness of the animation and the child-centric humour.  I know my friends and family’s children have this movie on repeat, so Pixar absolutely hit a home run with Cars.