Film Review: Cars

Cars (PG)
Dir. John Lasseter

Reviewed by Matt Adcock

Get your motor runnin’, head out on the highway, lookin’ for adventure and whatever comes our way!! Rev your engine and prepare for some high octane summer entertainment – it might not be eco friendly but Cars is high on MPH (mirth per hour).
Lots of critics have been bashing Pixar for making Cars – but I loved it as much as the excellent Toy Story films or The Incredibles.
The story features a young red racing car name Lightning McQueen. He's a hot rookie racing sensation but his success has gone to his head and he may need some fine tuning under the bonnet in terms of caring about his fellow cars. Fate steps in and dictates that he takes an unexpected detour en route to his major championship showdown and finds that life might actually be about more than winning!?

What’s so good about Cars? Well it brings the coolest, shiniest animation ever seen, I’m talking astonishing attention to detail and stunning visuals all round. Then you have the characters – Lightning (Owen Wilson) is an iconic hero who as one of my sons enthused is ‘cooler than cool’ and destined to sell billions of toy cars… There are some wonderfully slick tributes, jokes and cameos too including one by Jeremy Clarkson which was a stroke of absolutely genius. There’s even a car ‘babe’ in the form of curvy Porsche Sally (voiced by Bonnie Hunt) and both Paul Newman and Larry The Cable Guy put in good work as the ex champ ‘Doc’ and the rusty redneck towtruck ‘Mater’.

You could claim that Cars may be a little long at almost 2 hours but for someone like me who apparently said ‘car’ before ‘mummy’ – that’s not such a bad thing. OK so my wife did dose gently in the middle stretch but there are plenty of good ol’ moral values and life lessons to soak up in the nitros fuelled fun. And if you don’t get the hairs on the back of your neck standing up during the final grand prix you should probably check for a pulse! Also look out during the end credits for some superb in-jokes.With Cars Pixar prove again that they are still the masters of the animated genre – although I do rather like the look of Monster House and Hoodwinked too. Oh and if you have Sky TV – you can see me talking about new Luc Besson flick Angel A this week on EAT CINEMA channel 199!

Darkmatters rating system (out of 5):

Action ööö – racing is cool...
Laughs ööö – cracking in jokes - Pixar style
Horror ö - a 3 yr old near me shouted 'I'm not scared'... I believed them
Babes ööö – take a Porsche for ride?

Overall öööö (I AM SPEED!!)


Darkmatters: H O M E