Merrick’s car probably wouldn’t have a good personality…
The Squirrel With The Red Nose wrote in with a review of CARS. It’s an extremely positive review that will undoubtedly make some people scream…
…ah, never mind.
Here’s The Squirrel With The Red Nose…
Today I had the pleasure of having a kindalike private screening of Cars on the European continent. Let’s leave out the exact location because there was only me and a few other people in the screening room. Anyway, we saw Cars in it’s full glory right up to the last seconds after the end credits where we see what those pesky flying blue bugs really are.
If you don’t want to read any spoilers, than skip this review, but I think the spoilers are mild.
Lightning McQueen is a young, energetic race car with only one thing on his mind: himself. The film starts as he races for the ultimate cup in racing. His competition is ‘The King’, who’s been winning for last few years and hold the big fat sponsor deal with Dinoco, the oil company, and Chick Hicks, who’s always finished second after ‘The King’ and feels that his day has finally come. McQueen is bound to win, but because he only thinks of himself, the finish is a tie between the three of ‘m. A second final race is needed. In California.
To be the first to make it to the west coast, he tells his truck Mack, to keep on driving. But Mack falls asleep and looses McQueen on the dark roads in the Mid West. As McQueen has only stickers for lights, he can’t see where he’s going and he lands in Radiator Springs, where he make a mess of the townroad and gets arrested. As soon as judge Doc Hudson looks at him, he lets him go, but Sally, a former LA lawyer convinces the judge to have McQueen fix the main road before he leaves. McQueen at first tries to escape the little town, but ultimately it starts to grow on him. Especially Sally.
So, how is the film? I’ve been reading all this crap on how Over The Hedge is a better film than Cars. Like I said: crap. Not only does Cars (and therefor Pixar) take animation to another level, and believe me, this IS another level of animation, it tells a story in a far better way. Visually, in dialogue and in animation.
The visual are stunning. The paint on the cars, the detail in the landscape, the reflections of the neon lights as the cars cruise the new paved main raod at night. It’s gorgeous to look at. The light is great, even the night shots when McQueen and Mater go out to push over tractors look amazing. And another thing: it’s nice to look at an animation film that ISN’T THAT DAMN LOUD ALL OF THE TIME!!! It’s nice to hear the gravel under the tires and nothing else.
Dialogue: I’m so fed up with these standup comedians doing standup comedy that has nothing to do with what’s on the screen. Here we see characters grow. Paul Newman plays his part in a wonderful way and even Owen Wilson fits his part in a wonderful way. John Ratzenberger is back again for the umphteen time and plays with that in a hilareous couple of scenes during the end titles, where even Tom Hanks make a brief appearance, just like a few others. If you look closely, you even see a whole lot of Pixar references in the film like the Birds, but there gone before you’ve even seen them. Just listen in closely.
Animationwise the cars are alive. I got in a car after the screening and I could swear the cars around me were alive. I was stuck in traffic with vehicles that can talk and move. Guys, these cars in Cars are just as alive as the fish in Nemo, the toys in Toy Story or anything in any other Pixar film. They studies the subject real hard and did a wonderful job!
Nothing bad? Yeah, well, the middle kinda like sucks. After the road is done in a hurried way, there is a race between McQueen and someone else from Radiator Springs and after McQueen loses that race, the movie falls flat for about ten minutes. The listen up and learn moments of the movie. But I can live with that.
Music is well picked for some montage scenes and the films sometimes has an Asian visual feel to it. Very good and much needed in our western culture. Cars is great and although it’s story may not be that epic, it is about something very important: sometimes there is more to win in a game than the cup. Go and see what that may be.
