Movie Review — Cars

Quick Reaction

Cars was useless.

More Details

For starters, I don’t like NASCAR (or other car racing).  And mind you, this isn’t in isolation: I went with a date to a car race one time; I don’t think we went out again after that.  90-minute drive to get there, and another hour to get into the racegrounds and park (and an hour to get out again later).  Then lots of cars going by a few at a time, and expensive concessions.  What was the point?  Not even any crashes.

(There’s a theory that says there are two types of sports.  In one, you go to see someone doing something impressive — track & field, for example.  In the other, you go to see someone get hurt — football.  Car racing: in person, you often can’t see the whole picture of the race, just a couple hundred yards of the track, so frankly, you’re there in hopes of seeing a nasty crash.)

(Baseball doesn’t seem to fit into either category.  Maybe it’s not really a sport?  And Ice Dancing falls in both categories.  <grin>)

Beyond that, with Cars in particular, I found the character designs to be ugly.  And while I expect a simplified story in animated films, since they are largely aimed at kids, I typically expect enough non-kid content in a Pixar film to make adults not feel the film was a waste of their time.  I didn’t get that in Cars: shallow characterization, predictable plot, and a “message” throughline so worn that it could get a blowout on any curve.

Say Something Nice

Beautiful work on the landscapes.  Can I get a short film just of them?