Directed by
John Lasseter
Joe Ranft (co-director)
Story credits
John Lasseter
Joe Ranft
Jorgen Klubien
Screenplay credits
Dan Fogelman
John Lasseter
Joe Ranft
Kiel Murray
Phil Lorin
Jorgen Klubien
Cast
Owen Wilson ………. Lightning McQueen (voice)
Paul Newman ………. Doc Hudson (voice)
Bonnie Hunt ………. Sally Carrera (voice)
Larry The Cable Guy ………. Mater (voice)
Cheech Marin ………. Ramone (voice)
Tony Shalhoub ………. Luigi (voice)
Guido Quaroni ………. Guido (voice)
Jenifer Lewis ………. Flo (voice)
Paul Dooley ………. Sarge (voice)
Michael Wallis ………. Sheriff (voice)
George Carlin ………. Fillmore (voice)
Katherine Helmond ………. Lizzie (voice)
John Ratzenberger ………. Mack/Abominable Snowplow/P.T. Flea Car/Car Hamm (voice)
Joe Ranft ………. Red/Peterbuilt (voice)
Michael Keaton ………. Chick Hicks (voice)
Richard Petty ………. The King (voice)
Jeremy Piven ………. Harv (voice)
Release date: November 7th 2006
Running Time: 116 minutes
Rated: G
In its ability to entertain a 3-year-old, Cars is far from the world’s greatest film. (If you are interested, the world’s greatest film for entertaining a toddler is Pixar’s own Toy Story 2 which my daughter watched every single day for six straight weeks.) Cars is nearly two hours long, and has some slow stretches. But here’s the thing, it isn’t a kiddie film; it’s a family film, and a great one at that. It’s something that I can watch with my daughter, my wife, my mom, my tool and die-maker father.
Pixar never ceases to amaze me. The level of their quality control is astounding. Their stories are always solid. Their characters are consistent and well-defined. Their big jokes rarely misfire. Their in-jokes never distract. Their visuals are stunning. Their movies are directed more competently than the average Oscar-nominated prestige picture. Cars is no exception. It’s a wonderful film that manages to capture both the feel of Route 66 and the feel of a NASCAR race. It is a beautiful looking film, both in design and presentation. I’m astonished that Pixar so perfectly created a character that both looks like Richard Petty and Richard Petty’s old Superbird.
In order to break up this love-fest, I’m going to make a couple of criticisms towards the flick, and evaluate each.
Criticism one: The story to Cars is fairly thin and unoriginal. We’ve see it all before, an ambitious young go-getter finds himself trapped in a slow-paced small town. Eventually the go-getter discovers the value of stopping to smell the roses, and that the journey is its own reward.
Does that criticism hold? Yes and no. I’ve seen it before, but never really believed it. The story here is feels far more personal, and far more honest than say … Doc Hollywood.
Criticism two: When there isn’t a whole lot of action, 116 minutes is too long for the modern kid’s attention span.
Does that criticism hold? Eh. It’s chicken and egg. Part of the problem is that kids are constantly fed these crappy AD/HD cartoons. If you give them activities which reward patience, they’ll grow more patient. Half the time when a kid watches a movie at home, they are doing other things anyway. I’d much rather have this film on my television than say, Doogal (Satan’s favorite film) or the grating Chicken Little, or the ugly and cheesy Hoodwinked or, well, we could go on like this for a while.
Criticism three: {Spoiler alert!) Standard rules would’ve awarded points to Lightning for leading the most laps in the final race of the season. Lightning should’ve won the Piston Cup without the need for the tie-breaker race.
Does that criticism hold? No. It’s a world with anthropomorphic cars. The subtleties of points championships might differ.
That is about all the criticism which I can muster. In all honesty, I don’t think I have seen a film better than Cars this year.
The DVD
All in all, this is the leanest Pixar DVD yet. It’s only one disc. That really isn’t a bad thing. Most of what is trimmed from the standard Disney DVD won’t be missed. For instance, there is no Fastplay option. There are no lame read-along storybooks. There are no annoying DVD remote games. There are no redundant tours of Pixar. There is no mini-documentary about the scoring.
Here is what you do get:
-Two cartoons: the fairly funny Mater and the Ghostlight, and the spectacular One Man Band.
-An engrossing 16 minute making-of feature centering on the inspiration and thematic elements of the film. It’s a nice change of pace from the standard nuts-and-bolts style features that normally come with DVDs.
-Some trailers, including the teaser for Ratatouille. The menu for has a nifty drive-in theater intermission theme.
-A collection of deleted/alternate scenes. These are basically at the animatics stage, and while the story changed a lot, much of the dialogue was cannibalized.
-An EASTER EGG! To access the Easter egg, go to the disc’s main menu. Lightning will do a couple of laps. After a while, a Dinoco checkered flag will appear. Click on the flag to access the Easter egg. What is it? A snippet of Boundin’ with the Jackalope replaced by Mater.
Also, one other nice addition. During the credits of the film, an epilogue rolls. Half the screen is credits; the other half is cartoon. While watching it on my television, I wished that I could better zoom in on the cartoon half. Well, the folks at Pixar read my mind and you get a feature that plays the epilogue cartoon full screen.
The Audio and Video: This disc looks and sounds fantastic, even without adjustments made with the help of its THX optimizer.
Currently this disc is a #1 seller at Amazon, and you can buy it for less than $15 (half the MSRP). It’s not a bad deal at all.
