Movie Review: Cars
Rated by 1 member
What Parents Should Know
Parents should know the movie includes raucous racing by
anthropomorphized cars, which careen off walls, trees, and each
other. A group of cars that look like
Fast and Furious cars style "gang" briefly threaten
another car. Cars briefly argue with one another, lose their
tempers, and look sad or lonely. There's some innocent
flirtation between boy and girl cars. Some mild language -- at
least one use of "hell." They should also know that the movie,
at 116 minutes, may be too long for many kids.
Families can discuss the relationship between the old cars and the newer ones. They have different values. How does the film set up a choice between the current era (selfishness, commercial and celebrity culture run rampant) and a more ethical-seeming past (Doc embodies patience, skill, and dedication to community)? How does Lightning learn to appreciate and also, conveniently, enhance that simpler life?
Common Sense Media Review
Colorful and often charming, CARS renders its nostalgia for
a mythic past via state of the art technologies. As his name
suggests, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is all about speed. A
hotshot red stock car who means to be the next superduper
champion, he's focused narrowly on what's just ahead of him:
the next turn, the next opponent, the next winner's circle.
Lightning wants to win the coveted Piston Cup. As the movie begins, he hits the track, cheered on by an adoring throng of other cars in the stands, as well as the pit crew, announcers (Bob Cutlass/Bob Costas and Darrell Cartrip/Darrel Wartrip), TV camera operators, and vendors. Slick and thrilling in its shiny surface detail, the NASCAR scene stretches before you like an anthropomorphized vista: This is the immediate future of animation, and Pixar, recently and loudly sold to Disney, means to own it.
The race pits Lightning and a bunch of also-rans against the legendary King (Richard Petty) and the brash Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton). A dead heat finale sends the three named cars off to a showdown in California, where the prizes include lifelong fame, sponsorship contracts, and assorted big-eyed groupies. Lightning boards his transport truck Mack (John Ratzenberger) and aims west along Route 66.
As per the formulaic plotline (see: Doc Hollywood), Lightning's fortunes is sidetracked when he falls off the truck and lands in a teeny town off the highway, Radiator Springs. Here he meets his life teachers, a raft of stereotypes dressed up as vehicles, from Sarge the reveille-playing, surplus-selling jeep (Paul Dooley) and Ramone the hyper-detailed lowrider (Cheech Marin) to Flo the neck-rolling (if she had a neck) diner waitress (Jenifer Lewis) and Filmore the hippie VW van (George Carlin), who likes to look at the single stoplight: "I'm tellin' ya, man, each blink is slower." And oh yes, Lightning's new best friend Mater the tow truck (Larry The Cable Guy) provides the requisite proud-to-be-a-redneck jokes.
Ticketed and sentenced to community service (repairing the road he's ruined by leading the sheriff [Michael Wallis] and deputies on a chase), Lightning squirms, complains, and tries to escape. And then he gives in, to the familiar life lesson that will comprise the bulk of the film's long-seeming 116 minutes.
Lightning's education is arranged by pretty blue Porsche lawyer Sally (Bonnie Hunt) and ordained by crotchety judge Doc (Paul Newman), a 1951 Hudson Hornet. By night Lightning is grumbling and paving, but by day, he's discovering the beauty of the western landscape, all big skies and grand canyons, the sort of mythic imagery that, according to the movie's surfeit of nostalgia, families once drove across country to consume.
Slowing down makes Lightning a more contented racecar. It also sets up for marketing opportunities. The film reframes youthful fancies as yet another set of consumable objects, ensuring that movie and NASCAR tie-in products will be in circulation for the summer. Indeed, the roll-out of Disney's Pixar Car toys and Goodyear's "Calling All Cars" tire sale, timed for the movie's opening weekend, seem only the beginning.
Families who enjoy this movie will also like Toy Story , Toy Story 2 , and Monsters, Inc . Or you might want to see the live action version of this story, Doc Hollywood, with Michael J. Fox.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
