Review: Cars. Pixar makes another hit...
Jun. 17th, 2006 03:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhal...In other news, water is wet.
Went a date with Tracy while Tom was at daycare to see Cars. Short summary: It's not as kenetically brilliant as The Incredibles, emotionally gut wrenching as Finding Nemo or as innovative as Toy Story, but it's a good movie. Which for a Pixar flick is damning it with faint praise.
Spoilers Ahoy
Speedy and full of himself racing car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is on his way to a three-way raceoff for the prestigious Piston Cup, when a bizarre accident lands him in the podunk town of Radiator Springs. Stuck with the job of repairing the road he'd just ruined, he learns what really important in life, and why interstates suck.
Ok, so it's Doc Hollywood with chrome. It's still effective though. I had serious doubts that Pixar could anthropomophize cars suffciently to keep me interested through a nearly two hours movie. As usual, I was proven wrong. The wierd use of the cars' windshields for eyes works, and you accept them as "human" even as you drink in the details of their wierd world.
I especially had my doubts about Lightning's character. Generally I hate "Jerk who has to learn his lesson" characters (watch Disney's lesser effort Brother Bear for a prime example of how anoying they can be), but he's given a nice pre-race monolog that establishes what sort of personal pressure he's operating under. He's focused his whole life on racing (he doesn't even have real headlights!), and is just realizing how narrow his world is.
Other characters:
Larry the Cable Guy as Mater "Like Tomater, only without the 'Tuh'", manages to be Gomer Pyle sweet instead of Gilligan irritating. And I swear I didn't hear him say "Get 'er done!" once, even though he's quoted as doing so in the IMDB Quote section. He's the guy who latches onto Lightning, liking him despite all evidence of jerkness to the contrary.
Helen Hunt as Sally Carrera starts off as a bit too similar to Princess Atta from A Bug's Life, coming across as goody-goody earnest, but she warms up as her frustration with Speed's self-centerness mounts, and then turns into fondness as he mellows out. And there's something terribly appropriate in a Porsche being an ex Los Angeles lawyer.
Then we come to Paul Newman as Doc Hudson... Ye, gods, this was a fine choice. Putting aside the obvious gag of having a race-obsessed actor playing a...
B
I
G
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
...Former Piston Cup champion...
E
N
D
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
... he brings a warmth and world-weariness to his character that fits like glove. Never mind the blue paint job and chrome fender, that's Paul Newman talking to you, as natural as can be. And no matter how corny the lessons are that he teaches Speed, it doesn't change the fact that they're Truth, and he makes the boy listen.
As for the rest, the other actors do a yoeman job. George Carlin is underused and low key as a VW Microbus still hung over from the sixties, and the only really irritating character is Cheech Marin as a low rider with a sweet and ever changing paint job (his character is fine, it's just that the idea is too damned obvious and stereotyped). I do wish we could have had a little more hackground on what Harv's (a big firetruck with a scardey-cat personality) problems were, but that's only a credit to Pixar's writing.
Oh, and big spoiler, John Ratzenberger is in the movie. :p A fact that becomes a big gag in the closing credits, which are a brain breaking celebration of metahumor.
Speaking of which, I'm tempted to write up this place for Infinite Worlds. Because I can see Homeline's scientists driving themselves mad trying to figure out how a literal automotive culture could have evolved naturally.
.
.
.
The sad truth being that this is just Reign of Steel some thousand years on, with Zone Vancouver and Denver finally flipping out completely and building bots with implanted vat brains, relieving a twisted version of 20th Centurty car culture, taken to a literal extreme.
Went a date with Tracy while Tom was at daycare to see Cars. Short summary: It's not as kenetically brilliant as The Incredibles, emotionally gut wrenching as Finding Nemo or as innovative as Toy Story, but it's a good movie. Which for a Pixar flick is damning it with faint praise.
Spoilers Ahoy
Speedy and full of himself racing car Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is on his way to a three-way raceoff for the prestigious Piston Cup, when a bizarre accident lands him in the podunk town of Radiator Springs. Stuck with the job of repairing the road he'd just ruined, he learns what really important in life, and why interstates suck.
Ok, so it's Doc Hollywood with chrome. It's still effective though. I had serious doubts that Pixar could anthropomophize cars suffciently to keep me interested through a nearly two hours movie. As usual, I was proven wrong. The wierd use of the cars' windshields for eyes works, and you accept them as "human" even as you drink in the details of their wierd world.
I especially had my doubts about Lightning's character. Generally I hate "Jerk who has to learn his lesson" characters (watch Disney's lesser effort Brother Bear for a prime example of how anoying they can be), but he's given a nice pre-race monolog that establishes what sort of personal pressure he's operating under. He's focused his whole life on racing (he doesn't even have real headlights!), and is just realizing how narrow his world is.
Other characters:
Larry the Cable Guy as Mater "Like Tomater, only without the 'Tuh'", manages to be Gomer Pyle sweet instead of Gilligan irritating. And I swear I didn't hear him say "Get 'er done!" once, even though he's quoted as doing so in the IMDB Quote section. He's the guy who latches onto Lightning, liking him despite all evidence of jerkness to the contrary.
Helen Hunt as Sally Carrera starts off as a bit too similar to Princess Atta from A Bug's Life, coming across as goody-goody earnest, but she warms up as her frustration with Speed's self-centerness mounts, and then turns into fondness as he mellows out. And there's something terribly appropriate in a Porsche being an ex Los Angeles lawyer.
Then we come to Paul Newman as Doc Hudson... Ye, gods, this was a fine choice. Putting aside the obvious gag of having a race-obsessed actor playing a...
B
I
G
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
...Former Piston Cup champion...
E
N
D
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
... he brings a warmth and world-weariness to his character that fits like glove. Never mind the blue paint job and chrome fender, that's Paul Newman talking to you, as natural as can be. And no matter how corny the lessons are that he teaches Speed, it doesn't change the fact that they're Truth, and he makes the boy listen.
As for the rest, the other actors do a yoeman job. George Carlin is underused and low key as a VW Microbus still hung over from the sixties, and the only really irritating character is Cheech Marin as a low rider with a sweet and ever changing paint job (his character is fine, it's just that the idea is too damned obvious and stereotyped). I do wish we could have had a little more hackground on what Harv's (a big firetruck with a scardey-cat personality) problems were, but that's only a credit to Pixar's writing.
Oh, and big spoiler, John Ratzenberger is in the movie. :p A fact that becomes a big gag in the closing credits, which are a brain breaking celebration of metahumor.
Speaking of which, I'm tempted to write up this place for Infinite Worlds. Because I can see Homeline's scientists driving themselves mad trying to figure out how a literal automotive culture could have evolved naturally.
.
.
.
The sad truth being that this is just Reign of Steel some thousand years on, with Zone Vancouver and Denver finally flipping out completely and building bots with implanted vat brains, relieving a twisted version of 20th Centurty car culture, taken to a literal extreme.
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Date: 2006-06-17 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-19 03:29 pm (UTC)