Review: Cars


In a world devoid of humans, arrogant racing car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) has an automobile accident on his way to a big tournament that sees him stranded in a dead-end town called Radiator Springs. He’s arrested for a traffic offence and judge Doc Hudson (voiced by Paul Newman, a long-time racing fan and driver in real-life) sentences him to repair a stretch of road. Doc also happens to be a former racing champion himself. Bonnie Hunt voices Sally, a Porsche and local motel owner who slowly starts to find some charm in McQueen. Paul Dooley voices a jeep named Sarge, George Carlin is a hippie VW, and John Ratzenberger has his moments voicing a neglectful big rig in charge of transporting McQueen.


AKA: “Doc Hollywood” meets “Wacky Racers”. This 2006 John Lasseter film for Pixar should’ve been a cracker, even for non-revheads like me. The animation is superlative, and hey, any film with the voices of Paul Newman, Michael Keaton, and Paul Dooley is not to be sneezed at, especially when Pixar’s proven track record is added (no pun intended). Unfortunately, the story, which is really just a re-tooling of the lukewarm Michael J. Fox film “Doc Hollywood”, is unoriginal, moralistic and rather dull. It doesn’t help that Wilson’s Lightning McQueen is incredibly arrogant and self-obsessed, not likeable at all. And he never really grows by the end, either. The other characters are generally nondescript and mostly par for the course for these sorts of films (Oh, wow, a sassy African-American car and a Latino one…voiced by Cheech, of course! Nice stereotyping, Pixar!), and personally, I don’t dig cars. They go vroom and drive you places. So. Freaking. What. The car racing scenes were also incessantly noisy, too, a problem I had with “A Bug’s Life”, there was just too much chatter for my ears. And there were too many of them.


The idea of a world entirely made up of motor vehicles isn’t as clever as it sounds. With no humans in sight, or at least more agreeable anamorphic characters, there’s no one to latch onto.  Larry the Cable Guy steals it as the loveable hick tow truck driver Mater (tow-mater, get it?), and even he’s playing a stereotype based on a cliché.


It’s got some fine moments here and there, and on a technical level it is an accomplishment, but story and character-wise, Pixar are sitting on their arses with this lazy, undernourished effort. I mean, stealing from a Michael J. Fox movie? (And geez, at least steal from a good one like “Teen Wolf”. Hey, that was a cool movie when I was 6!) For a film about motor vehicles, it sure don’t go very far…or very fast for that matter. It stalls midway (Last gag…I promise!), for an awfully long pit stop (oops, sorry!). Scripted by Dan Fogelman, Philip Loren, and Kiel Murray, I know a lot of people loved this, but it’s watchable at best. Even that may be too kind.


Rating: C+

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chilly t
Read more

Review: Boyka: Undisputed

Yuri Boyka (Scott Adkins) is out of prison and fighting for a living, with ambitions for the ‘Most Complete Fighter’ to make a real name for himself. However, after an opponent dies during a fight, the deeply religious Boyka starts to have a crisis of conscience. He tries to make amends with the man’s widow, which eventually pits him against a local gangster (Alon Moni Aboutboul, quite good). Anything with Scott Adkins will generally get me interested, and although this series peaked with the superlative “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , this 2017 film from director Todor Chapkanov (director of the SyFy movies “Copperhead” and “Ghost Town” ) is no slouch in a series yet to deliver anything less than solid entertainment. Producer Isaac Florentine is missed in the director’s chair, but Chapkanov gives us at the very least the series’ most dramatically ambitious entry, as Adkins’ ‘most complete fighter’ Yuri Boyka continues on his journey to redemption here. In this one, the
Read more

Review: Ninja 2: Shadow of a Tear

Scott Adkins is once again Casey, an American proponent of the martial art of Ninjutsu. When Casey’s pregnant Japanese wife (Mika Hijii) is rubbed out, he’s on a vengeance mission to find her killers. A friendly face, Nakabara (Kane Kosugi) turns up at the funeral, and suggests Casey come to Thailand to deal with his grief in another country. Casey initially declines, but eventually takes Nakabara up on his offer. However, his wife’s murder still haunts Casey, and with intel supplied by Nakabara, the trail eventually leads Casey to a brutal drug baron named Goro (Shun Sugata).   I was extremely disappointed with the first “Ninja” , but had heard that this 2013 sequel from director Isaac Florentine ( “Undisputed II: Last Man Standing” , “Undisputed III: Redemption” , “Ninja” ) was a damn near masterpiece of the martial-arts action movie genre. Having now finally gotten my hot little hands on it, I’d say the hype is a bit much, but this is unquestionably a much better film than the f
Read more