Cars Review

I haven't had a chance to talk about Pixar's latest animated film, Cars, even though I did see on the opening weekend.

The Good:
It's an animation masterpiece. You would think that a movie about essentially inanimate objects (cars) in a dusty old town with no people or animals that there wouldn't be much to animate, but you would be wrong. The wizards at Pixar breathed life into these objects in a way no other studio can match. They are always one step ahead of the competition when it comes to how good these movies look. In my opinion only Blue Sky Studio's work can come close.

The Not so Good:
John Lasseter said one time that he disliked when people called animation a genre because it isn't. Drama is a genre, comedy is a genre but animation is an art form. Ok I agree, but then what is Cars? I assume it's supposed to be a comedy, but I didn't think it was funny as the other Pixar films. I understood the humor but didn't laugh out loud very much with the exception of one grown up joke about the "Piston Cup".

The other weak point was the story. It was OK but not as strong as the other films I've enjoyed from Pixar. It wasn't until after the movie did I find out why. Apparently it's not an original storyline but was "strongly influenced" by the 1991 film Doc Hollywood starring Michael J. Fox. Perhaps Lasseter was out of idea's and wanted to stick it to Disney for their last film before joining another studio (which of course didn't happen).

Recommendations:
So do I recommend you go see this in the theatre? If you have kids, you absolutely have to. Even though I didn't enjoy it as much as most of the other Pixar films, both Ari and Tu Tuz loved it.

If you are a CGI fan like myself then you should see this on the big screen. Again, I was very impressed with the visual effects... the gleaming chrome, the neon lights and the desert environments looked photorealistic in most of the scenes.

Another bonus is all the extra's you get from watching the film at the theatre. I got to see the new trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the new Pixar short called One Man Band , the trailer for Ratatouille and those always entertaining closing credits at the end of each Pixar film.

If you are in neither of these categories and you are hurting to see other films (Superman Returns, Pirates, Lady in the Water, ect...) then waiting for the DVD might be prudent.