Plenty Of Heart Under The Hood
Disney/Pixar Produces Classic Cars

In a summer movie season where the early blockbusters have landed with a distinctive thud (X-Men 3, Mission Impossible 3) and the interesting films have not yet made their way to the High Country (Flight 93, An Inconvenient Truth, A Prairie Home Companion), at least one great movie is now in Boone.

Larry the Cable Guy stars as Mater and Owen Wilson stars as Lightning McQueen in the new Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars.

Disney and Pixar have teamed up to make one of the finest G-rated films of the decade with their new family-friendly flick Cars. It has something for nature lovers, NASCAR fans, romantics, fans of state-of-the-art animation, and people who like puns and corny jokes.Cars truly touches on so many themes and stories that it would be hard to imagine the movie lover who doesn’t enjoy it.

The basic story of Cars is of a stuck up young race car named Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) who must learn how to stop being such a lone wolf and start working with his teammates. During his journey he also learns to appreciate the beauty of a small town out west named Radiator Springs with its odd cast of “car-acters.” The town, located on Route 66 (the Mother Road, depicted gorgeously in Cars), has been bypassed by Interstate 40 and nearly forgotten. Lightning lands in the Radiator Springs jail and eventually meets Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), a tow truck named Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), Luigi the tire salesman (Tony Shalhoub), Filmore the VW van (George Carlin) and other automobiles.

While Lightning works off his community service, he loses valuable time preparing for the finals of the Piston Cup Race Series. Of course, he makes it to the Los Angeles Motor Speedway just in time for the start of the race, but that’s no guarantee that he’ll be there for the checkered flag. That’s one of the great things about Cars—it avoids the obvious better than just about any animated film in recent memory. Just when you think Lightning is on the right path, he and Mater enjoy an evening of scaring the bovine tractors in the country.

The film also utilizes its cameos better than most cartoons. Bob Costas and Darrell Waltrip play race announcers named Bob Cutlass and Darrell Cartrip, while the racecars themselves feature the voices of Michael Keaton, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mario Andretti. My favorite cameos are by PBS’s Car Talk guys, Ray and Tom Magliozzi, who yuck it up as Lightning’s sponsors Rusty and Dusty Rust-eze.

Cars director John Lasseter grew up in the car-crazed world of Southern California while his dad worked in a Chevrolet dealership. His love of the subject is apparent in the details of this animated film that carefully avoids subjects such as global warming, gas prices and smog.

“I have always loved cars,” said Lasseter. “In one vein, I have Disney blood, and in the other, there’s motor oil. When Joe Ranft and I first started talking about this film in 1998, we knew we wanted to do something with cars as the characters.”

Lasseter and Ranft ended up overcoming obstacles such as how to give a car’s exterior expression and a range of motion and how to incorporate the Route 66 story into a children’s tale. They succeeded so well that Cars’ characters have more heart and personality than any real character in 90% of the films released this year. They even got the celebrities who provide the voices in the movie to rehearse and record their parts together, something of a miracle in the world of high-priced voice-overs.

Ironically, Ranft died in an automobile accident in 2005 and didn’t live to see the completed movie, even though he does supply the voice of Red, Radiator Springs’ super-shy fire engine.

Rug Rat Alert

Be forewarned: Cars is close to a two-hour movie, definitely a long one in the world of animated films. It also features plenty of trailers for upcoming kids movies such as Charlotte’s Web and Ratatouille (both look great) plus a hilarious Pixar short called One Man Band. If spending close to two-and-a-half hours sitting still and watching movies is beyond the capability of your four-year-old, you might want to make sure you see Cars during one of the early matinees with all of the other parents and kids. I saw the movie during the 4 p.m. showing and from 5:30 to 6:30 the theater was abuzz with restless rug rats running up and down the aisles and looking for salvageable chewing gum under the seats.

Another warning: Don’t leave your seat when the credits start to roll or you will miss some of the funniest parts of the movie as the Cars characters meet at an old drive-in movie theater and watch automobile parodies of other Pixar films such as A Bug’s Life, Toy Story and Monsters, Inc.

Cars is rated G and is currently playing at Regal Cinemas in Boone.