Summer Movie Olympics, Part 5: Revving Up

“Cars” is probably Pixar’s worst film. Which makes it better than 99% of what Hollywood produces on a regular basis.

The animation is absolutely stunningly gorgeous. The craftsmen-and-women who slave away behind computer monitors for countless hours at Pixar just cannot be praised enough. The way they dealt with light in the movie, how it reflects off the metallic surfaces of the cars- all of it is amazingly beautiful. The voice acting is excellent as always, with the great Paul Newman turning in the movie’s best performance as a wizened old timer. The story is straightforward and simple, while the storytelling and pacing is as solid as ever. The film’s message, while clichéd and almost as old as storytelling itself, is still nice and positive for the millions of kids who will line up for the movie. There were moments of greatness throughout, moments that made me laugh out loud, moments that made me almost cry, and moments that made me applaud and cheer.

But I had a couple reservations for the first half of the movie. The main problem with this movie about talking cars is that it’s a bit hard to really buy into...talking cars. The movie really puts us in a strange, unfamiliar world. Everything alive in the world of the movie is also a machine (including the bugs, which are…VW Bugs.) A movie about talking, living machines is a bit strange, especially considering the fact that the movie is almost worshipfully nostalgic for the simpler, good ol’ days.

I mean, this world really raises a lot of major questions that do not immediately come to mind in any other Pixar movie. Questions like- “where do baby cars come from?” I mean, maybe that’s an un-creative question, but how are parents going to answer that one? There are no children in the entire movie, which is an interesting choice considering the film’s main target demographic, but how are parents supposed to answer such questions by members of said demographic? Do they tell their kids “the cars were made in a factory?” And if this is the answer, what came first- the factory or the cars? To be even more crass about it, how do cars, y’know, do it? When our hero falls for the sexy Porsche, what does he stick in and where? See, now I’m getting really gross.

But beyond the whole reproduction and sex question, there is a whole lot more I want to know. In the movie we see that our hero, Lightning McQueen (voiced charmingly by Owen Wilson,) is a super-star racing car. So car racing is as popular in the America of the movie as it is (apparently) in our America- but do these cars follow other sports? Do cars play Car-Football? How awesome a sport would that be- two lines of cars facing each other, smashing into eachother while another car tries to drive backward fast enough to get off a pass- but how would they pass? In fact, this idea is cool enough that I might try to patent it as a real sport- so if anybody on the internet tries to steal it, you heard the idea here first.

How would they catch? How do the cars operate the many cameras we see throughout the movie? We see the cameras are attached to the cars- but who attaches them?

We see that there are animals in this world- tractors are like cows. But which kinds of vehicles are akin to humans and which are akin to animals, and who makes such judgments and classifications? Is there an equivalent of PETA, advocating the prevention of cruelty to animal-vehicles?

Do cars go to war? They must, considering the character of Sarge (Paul Dooley,) who runs an army surplus shop. Do they kill eachother with mounted guns? Do cars ride in tanks big enough to fit them in battle, or do they just follow talking, breathing tanks? What do cars go to war over- oil prices?

Without humans to drive them, do cars ever wonder their purpose in life is? What do most cars do for a living? The small town where most of the movie takes place has a few small businesses, most of them catering to car maintenance. But what other types of jobs are there in their world?

What are the implications of a world of cars living as the dominant species to the environment? Are they as worried about global warming as Al Gore is? What is the social hierarchy of the Cars? What does the economy rely on (once again, I’ll guess oil prices.) What is their political system like? Do cars evolve? Do they have organized religion?

And seriously, how do they build things without arms?

As I watched the first half of the movie, I began to hypothesize on the origins of the world of cars. My “Lost” conspiracy theory? I believe the cars are part of some dystopian future experiment involving a Dharma Initiative-like organization made up of the last humans on Earth, who created these living, sentient cars as some sort of elaborate experiment they were unwilling participants in. But the humans have long since died and the cars have continued to exist, repeating the triumphs and mistakes of the men who created them.

I still haven’t figured out where baby cars come from.

So like I said- the world was a wee bit distracting and distancing, unlike all previous six Pixar classics- which immediately pulled you into their fantastical worlds of living Toys, brave bugs, professionally-scary Monsters, neurotic fish, and super heroic families. The whole thing was just a bit hard to swallow at first.

But slowly, I let my guard down and just let the tale of the egotistical Lightning McQueen learning to care about other people…er, cars…began to work it’s magic on me. As the hotshot racer is forced to stick around in the sleepy town of Radiator Springs after getting lost en route to a championship race and slowly learns to love the town and it’s quirky inhabitants- so do we as an audience. As Lightning is forced to slow down, he is able to figure out what really matters in life, and damnit if those corny old lessons aren’t still effective when done as well as they are here. The filmmakers clearly have a genuine love for the small towns off the main highways of America, and it really shows throughout the film. Movies about sleepy little American ghost towns always haunt me in a weird way, and this one worked for me that way too- even if the ghost town is inhabited by cars.

By the time he has redeemed himself, helped out everyone in town in the large and loveable supporting cast (which features amusing turns by George Carlin as a hippy VW bus advocating natural, clean burning gas, Cheech Marin as a tricked out car always sporting a new paint job, and the incomparable Tony Shalhoub as a Ferrari-worshiping Italian tire salesman,) learned a few life lessons from the gruff yet loveable Doc (Newman,) found a best friend in rusty old tow-truck Mater (a shockingly excellent Larry the Cable Guy, playing an enthusiastic and loveable doofus,) and fallen in love with Sally, the sexy Porsche (the always wonderful Bonnie Hunt,) we are really rooting for our hero to win his climactic race. The middle of the film might be a bit slow, but it’s a necessary part of the journey to get us to care and love the world of the movie. It makes the big race that much more exciting, satisfying, and by the end, honestly moving.

Funny that a movie about talking cars, even as it stalls a bit in the beginning, can end up moving you, making you laugh, making you cheer, and making you fall in love with it’s characters. Machines or not, John Lassetter and his crew reveal their souls to us. Is this the worst movie Pixar has made so far? Maybe so, but if all movies could have such an excess of magic in them as this wonderful studio’s low-point, we’d be living in a much better world.

But I still want to know where baby cars come from.