Review of Cars

Introduction

The eighth film from the award winning Pixar studio sees the return of John Lasseter to the director's chair for the first time since 1999's 'Toy Story 2'. Having anthropomorphisised toys, insects, wardrobe monsters and fish, Pixar turned their attention to automobiles in this tale of an egotistical race car who finds himself stuck in a one horsepower town.

Lightning McQueen, (Owen Wilson) is a rookie on the 'Piston Cup' circuit and must travel to California for one final race to decide the championship. In the rush to get there, McQueen forces his transporter 'Mack' to drive through the night without rest and in his tiredness, Mack allows McQueen to fall from the back of the truck where he then becomes lost.

Under arrest in the backwater town of Radiator Springs, McQueen's ego takes a pounding when no-one knows who he is and force him to stay until he has made amends for some reckless driving.

Video/Visuals

It's no understatement to say that this is the most visually stunning of the Pixar films and the racing sequences are breathtaking in their detail and there are no signs of any streaking, ghosting or any other blemishes. A flawless transfer.

My only niggle with this release, as with 'The Incredibles', is that the widescreen and fullscreen versions are released separately and not on the same disc as with prior releases. Whether this is for compression reasons on the more technologically advanced films, or a cynical marketing exercise forcing households to buy both versions is unclear, but a shame in either case.

Audio/Soundtrack

The Dolby Digital 5.1 EX mix is excellent and, like the visuals, is superb during the race sequences but it's a shame they didn't include a DTS ES track. Still, as you would expect from a recent release, the sound is wonderfully presented and crystal clear.

The voice casting, as always with a Pixar film, is perfect: Owen Wilson's southern drawl suits his character down to the ground, Paul Newman's grizzled 'Doc Hudson' is excellent as his foil and stand-up comic Larry the Cable Guy and Pixar regular Bonnie Hunt provide solid support as 'Mater' and 'Sally': the 'buddy' and 'love interest' characters.

Although he composed the fine score, there are no songs sung by Randy Newman and the soundtrack is comprised of songs by original recording artists such as Sheryl Crowe, Kenny G and Chuck Berry.

Extra Features

You have to go back seven years to find a Pixar release with such a poor offering of extras. The past four releases have been two-disc affairs with such things as commentaries and comprehensive 'making of' featurettes. As with every other Pixar DVD, the animated short that preceded the film in cinemas appears as an extra, in this case the amusing 'One Man Band'.

The seven minute 'Mater & The Ghostlight' short explains Mater's brief mention of 'the Ghostlight' in the film, feels more like a deleted scene than a standalone feature.

The epilogue that ran through the end credits is available to watch on its own here, removing the distraction.

The main extra is the 'Inspiration For Cars' featurette. This is quite an interesting feature which runs at just over sixteen minutes and explains how and why John Lasseter came up with the project and how they researched it, including driving along Route 66 and visiting the towns that had been 'forgotten' just as in the film.

There are also four deleted scenes and several 'sneak peeks' (for 'Ratatouille', the 'Peter Pan' DVD and 'Meet The Robinsons') which run when the disc is inserted but fortunately can be skipped.

Overall Opinion

Several years ago, Pixar seemingly had a monopoly on quality films that were also entirely computer generated, but with the 'Shrek' films, Dreamworks have shown themselves capable of making well-written, beautifully animated movies which are both commercially and critically successful, Studio Ghibli continue to produce wonderful animated pictures and Aardman won an Oscar with the brilliant 'Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'.

Pixar have set the bar so high that anything less than another 'Toy Story 2' is almost a disappointment although, considering the animated mediocrity such as 'The Ant Bully', 'Ice Age: The Meltdown', 'Hoodwinked' and 'The Wild' that have recently been released, 'Cars' is comparatively excellent. The animation and design of 'Cars' is fantastic - I didn't think that the location of the eyes in the windscreen instead of in the headlights, which had hitherto been the rule for anthropomorphising vehicles, would work, but it does and the scenery in 'Ornament Valley' is beautifully realised. Even little touches such as the bugs being 'Bugs' of the VW 'Beetle' variety add to the film's charm and appeal.

Following the Oscar winning 'The Incredibles' was always going to be a hard act and, unfortunately, 'Cars' fails to meet the high standard set by Pixar. Technically, it's a triumph with the best animation yet seen from the studio but, unlike their best films, 'Cars' is arguably too long, particularly the second act, and compared to Pixar's other films, it's short on humour with few jokes or moments that will live long in children's memories.

It was sad to hear that Joe Ranft, a Pixar stalwart and the man who co-wrote and co-directed `Cars` died during production but it was fitting that the film should be dedicated to him.

Despite the shortcomings of `Cars`, Pixar is still the leading maker of computer-generated animated films and I hope that their next film, apparently `Toy Story 3`, will be a return to form.