Cars (2006)

Pixar was on a great run when it started out. Toy story was a phenomenal success which was followed by Bugs Life and Toy Story 2. All of them great movies. Next up for John Lasseter was his most personal film, Cars. John based it around his childhood of growing up and taking driving holidays with his Mom and Dad along the historic Route 66. The Pixar team actually took a trip through Route 66 to gather as much information as possible. Unfortunately the film just doesn't quite hit the same heights as other Pixar movies. Even now Cars is still considered to be the worst film made by Pixar. Having said that it's still better then most animation movies made by other animation studios.

The story centres around a shiny new race car called Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) who is a very arrogant race car and ends up trapped in a small town called Radiator Springs. It's here he learns the value of friendship and the importance of teamwork and community.

The world of cars is quite a surreal place with everything inhabited by automobiles. The designs are fantastic and are up to the standards we expect to see from a Pixar movie. Unfortunately the cars don't show enough emotion, not as much as the characters from the likes of UP and Wall-E anyway. This slight flaw makes the audience not care so much about the characters (I'm pretty sure the toy car of Lightning McQueen didn't sell as much as Buzz, Woody or Nemo). Which moves me onto my next point. This is the first film from Pixar that is aimed squarely at the kids which leaves the adults in the audience feeling bored. So with the cars not being able to show much emotion we have to rely on their voices to get their feelings across. As well as Owen we've got the pleasure of the legend that is Paul Newman who voices Doc Hudson and Bonnie Hunt who voices the Porsche named Sally. All do pretty good jobs but again don't really grab your attention and make you fall in love with these characters.

It's a shame that Cars has to be judged against other Pixar films because as a stand alone film, it's good family entertainment and beats the competition from other animation studios. It  Just isn't the instant classic you expect from Pixar. Fingers crossed things have improved in Cars 2.