By this time the novelty of computer animated films is completly gone, never to return. There was a time when every new CGI film (Toy Story, Shreck, A Bug's Life, Antz) was greeted with wide acclaim and enthusiam. In addition to being entertaining for young and old alike, there was just something cool about seeing something other than traditional cell animation.
But now the days when the visuals of these films alone provided thrills is over, and the market is now being flooded with product (I think there were something like five CGI films released this year alone). Even Pixar, the standard for quality in the business, is begining to loose its luster. After a string of great films, culminating with the masterpiece Finding Nemo, which features more real drama between its animated fish than most films with human characters, the studio the good but not great The Incredibles. This year's Cars shows that the well has dried up. They need to go back the drawing board and come up with something orignal.
There is a sense of going through the motions when it comes to Cars. Part of the problems is that the main character is a jerk, so its hard to get involved with his (it's?) story. That protagonist is Lightning McQueen
(voice of Owen Wilson) an arrogent young race car. That the car has a personality is not surprisng because the movie apparently takes place in an alternate universe where there are no people and cars are sentitent creatures. Putting aside the obvious questions (Why do they have buildings that only humans could use or get into?), the story follows
Lighting as he competes with two other cars for a major racing title. On the way to the race in California, he gets arrested and sentenced by a small town judge (Paul Newman) to community service. While in the town, he begins to learn obvious life lessons, such as that it's not a good idea to annoy everyone, and falls in love with the town D.A. (Bonnie Hunt).
The movie lacks the wit of the Toy Story films, the visual whimsy of A Bug's Life and Monster's Inc. and the basic drama of Finding Nemo. Although there are some occasionly funny one-liners, the movie doesn't have much going for it in the comedy department, and it seem like 116 minuets an awful long time for this simple a story. The anthropormophised cars are not really beliavable as sentient creatures (they seemd to do an awful lot without hands). But for the most part the animation is not the problem here, it's the story. If this were a live-action films about a human race car driver, I would have the same criticism - we've seen this movie over and over again. It's not that the movie is okay for kids and not adults, it's that there's nothing original here for anyone.
Cars (2006)