I was probably the biggest backer of Cars among anyone I knew - people told me for months how terrible they thought it looked, how it’d be the first stinker from Pixar, but I was steadfast: “No no no. The Incredibles had a terrible trailer too, and look how that came out.” So now that I’ve finally seen it, my thoughts? It’s just not that good. I mean, it’s not that bad - from a purely visual standpoint, any work that Pixar puts together will be a visual spectacle, and the film has its own fair share of amusing moments and comedy bits, but Cars is maybe the most disappointing Pixar film I’ve seen - not as purely bad as A Bug’s Life (the only Pixar film I consider a failure) but nowhere near the heights set by their masterpieces (of which I consider there to be four). The characters are underwritten, with three notable only for being broad ethnic stereotypes (Luigi, Flo, and in the film’s most stultifying move, the Mexican low-rider Ramone, voiced by Cheech Marin). I recognize, yes, this is supposed to be a story of redemption, but Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is such an unlikeable prick that the film’s attempts at showing his human side early on all seem more obligatory than natural. Saddest of all, I feel nothing for Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), the film’s romantic interest, a late-model Porsche 911. Two of my favorite characters - the tire-changing Guido and the crying firetruck Red (the late Joe Ranft) - seem profoundly underdeveloped. Only Paul Newman’s Doc Hudson and (I can’t believe I’m writing this) Larry the Cable Guy’s Mater feel like fully fleshed out, genuinely loveable characters in the Pixar tradition.

Let’s talk about missed opportunities - the joy of a Pixar film is the way the creators genuinely immerse themselves into a world. Think of the adorable squid, onscreen in Finding Nemo only minutes and yet more memorable (”Aww, you made me ink!”) than twenty Lightning McQueens. I find Cars to be severely lacking in this sort of ingenuity. I spent the film waiting - waiting - for the gleeful moment in which a character would start crying through a windshield washer, only to wipe it off moments later. A movie of wasted opportunities. The film’s missed opportunities spill over into the ideological: here is a film in praise of the relationship between the automobile and the environment that makes only cursory (and indeed, mocking) reference to the potential of alternative fuels (though the riff on SUVs late in the film is one of its finest and most astutely observed moments). An early story idea for Lasseter’s Cars concept concerned an electric car in a world of gas guzzlers - instead of that story, which would have likely made ten times the impact of a Who Killed the Electric Car?, we’re treated to the glorification of a consumer product as somehow being natural. The film’s emotional turn - Lightning enjoys a simple drive through the mountains with Sally - feels too much like a car commercial to hold any weight for me.

But let’s not dwell on the bad: instead, THE COLORS! A stunningly beautiful picture, astonishing in its sheer aesthetic bravura. Cars is the most technically stunning Pixar work yet and establishes that this studio is so far and above the hackwork at Dreamworks, Blue Sky, and (shudder) Blue Yonder/Kanbar as to be nearly untouchable. The humor is uniformly high quality, and as I said, the vocal performance of Larry the Cable Guy, despite an audible ‘Git-R-Done,’ was one of my favorites from any recent animated work. Little moments of joy still abound, but they’re colored by a lack of texture. By the way, is Chick (Michael Keaton) supposed to look like Burt Reynolds as a car? Because if he is, as I assumed, that’s the funniest damn thing I’ve seen in a long time.

I suppose if I had a conclusion on the film, it’s this: maybe the funniest moment in the film comes during the closing titles - the film makes an allusion to other Pixar works, including Monsters, Inc. As I walked out the theatre, my thoughts were not on Cars, a movie I probably could never see again and be okay with, but on Sully and Mike and how much I loved that film’s childlike preoccupation with shape and form and its wryly subversive call for alternative, less-damaging fuel sources (think about it). It made me really want to watch Monsters, Inc again.

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