Spin Out

With only one more night before Superman flies into theaters, I knew it was "now or never" if I wanted to get out to see Cars at the local screen with the digital projector.

Had I known what I do now, I wouldn't have felt any rush. Never mind digital on the big screen; waiting until DVD would have been just fine for this one, in my book.

Up front, I'll say that all told, I'll give the movie a B-. It was not by any stretch a total loss. It looked gorgeous as all of Pixar's movies have (though aside from a few impressive landscapes, it actually was probably inferior in terms of "wow" factor to Monsters Inc. and Finding Nemo). It had good voice performances, and good animation to further develop those characters. It had quite a few good gags and jokes.

What it lacked was any of the emotional heft that Pixar's other movies have had. Most of their early films had at least one scene where I could actually feel myself getting choked up and moved by the story being portrayed. In this movie, I never cared enough for any of the characters for that to happen.

I would never be one to claim that the main character of a story needs to be "likeable." But when they aren't, they need to be compelling to watch in their "unlikeability." The main character of this story, Lightning McQueen, is simply just an ass. I found it completely unbelievable that any character so full of himself could ever be rehabilitated. And I didn't want to see him rehabilitated. He was just as big a blowhard as his nemesis in the film, Chick Hicks. I saw no meaningful distinction between the two establishing why I should root for the one and against the other.

That left the rather wide cast of secondary characters populating the town of Radiator Springs. I had no easier time accessing their story of "being left behind with progress and the passage of time." This is material I think the two Toy Story movies mined thoroughly, and with far more success. (The Jessie montage in the middle of Toy Story 2 would be one of those "choked up" moments I mentioned earlier.)

And hey, as long as we're talking about other movies that have mined this plot already, Cars is basically a remake of Doc Hollywood. I know that Michael J. Fox movie was far from the first "fish out of water" movie made, but the similarities of these two particular movies are too great to ignore.

A minor SPOILER WARNING here for those who don't want to know about some gags in the end credits....

...but I thought it telling that the thing that got the biggest reaction from me in all of Cars was the series of adaptations of earlier Pixar movies into "car-themed films." And frankly, it seemed like a mistake to conjure up memories of Toy Story, Monsters Inc., and A Bug's Life -- all better movies than Cars.

Like I said, it's not a total loss. It's not a bad movie. But it is a Pixar movie I can't see myself buying on DVD. Which I guess tells you that for me, the streak has ended.