I rarely go to movie theaters and I don't think I've ever seen a movie on the day it came out. But tonight I took the PowerKids to see Cars, the new Pixar/Disney animated flick this evening. From Christie Lemire of the Canadian Press:
The makers of Doc Hollywood called. They want their movie back.
Cars rolls along like an animated, automotive version of that 1991
Michael J. Fox gem, from its basic plot points to its feel-good
conclusion.
...It's certainly a beautiful film, just like its Pixar predecessors. The
animators keep getting better at creating backgrounds and details that
look so realistic, you often forget you're watching a
computer-generated cartoon and feel as if you're looking at filmed
footage. The reflection of neon light on a car's hood, the splash of
water or rustle of leaves on the road, the hazy glow from lamps hanging
over the highway - all tangibly, stunningly rendered.
The last paragraph describes one thing that caught me about the movie - its stunning animation. Computer animation has come a long way since Dire Straits' video "Money for Nothing"... and even Shrek.
Kids will find the film fast and colourful (if they can sit still for
its two-hour running time - many couldn't at a recent New York
screening and were running around the theatre by the end). But adults
may find it quite facile, especially during a draggy stretch in which
James Taylor sings a song - one that's surprisingly clunky, considering
Randy Newman wrote it - which explains how tiny towns along Route 66
dried up once the interstate came plowing through the Southwest. It's
as if Lasseter yanked the emergency brake.
The theater was populated by many young boys and their families... like the PowerKids and I. It was sort of an odd treat to see my kids start fidgeting at almost exactly the same moments throughout the film as other kids did.
The movie starts slow and I could see its end coming a mile away, but it works its way into being a charmer. Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times liked it.
The recent trend in the field has been to go the wiseguy route. Disney,
Fox, DreamWorks and others have led us to equate computer animation
with bulletproof repartee and snappy patter, turning every creature on
the planet into a Borscht Belt comedian. It's not that those films
haven't been a treat, or that "Cars" doesn't have its share of gags
that make you laugh out loud. But director John Lasseter's latest is
not powered by glibness and speed but by warmth, emotion and
good-hearted charm. It offers the kinds of sensations all Hollywood
once did, and it makes us remember why those films made us care.
Manhola Dargis of the New York Times didn't find it as enjoyable. Must be the east coast bias perhaps because, as Mr. Turan notes:
"Cars" is not only in love with cars, it's also mad about the American
West in general and the romance of Route 66, the legendary Mother Road,
in particular.
