A new Pixar animation is generally cherished over here in Casa Broken Kode; then again do you blame me? After all they ‘sand the underside of the drawer’ (it’s a policy they have at Pixar regarding how much car and attention they give to their movies). The last couple of features from Pixar have been absolutely amazing. From the brilliant Finding Nemo, to The Incredibles, to Monsters Inc, every one of their movies, OOZES with characters and colour and story. Each movie has a clarity of vision and a crispness and love of one’s craft that the viewer generally cannot help but be drawn into these magical worlds that they create. With an introduction like that and knowing how hard it is to follow up on any kind of successful feature, be it a website, film, graphic novel, album, how does Cars fair in comparison?

The story in simple terms follow Lightning McQueen as he tries to travel to California along Route 66 in order to compete in a race for the Piston Cup (Daytona or something similar I guess, don’t know much about America motorsports). McQueen is not a very pleasant chap. He’s obnoxious, he’s over confident and he doesn’t have any friends. His trip to California takes a bit of a detour as he finds himself in the middle of Radiator Springs. A town where life has passed it by. It’s here that he learns that there’s more to life than just racing. All very inspirational, all very cotton candy type stuff, which is part of the problem.

I’m going to give you the bad news at the start of this review simply because it’s easy to be done with that aspect of it all, so that I can concentrate on the stuff I actually liked. The story believe it or not is actually the worst part of this movie. The reason is because it felt too formulaic for me. As I was watching this movie, I started remembering a couple of the previous Pixar movies and they all seem to follow a very similar story structure and then I remembered who was directing this. It’s a Lasseter movie. He’s a great director, don’t get me wrong, but the story and structure of his movies follow a pattern. Once you’ve watched them as many times as I have, you notice this pattern and can see it coming. With regards to the story, I guess this particular one is only better than ‘A Bug’s Life’ which I swear I can’t even remember what the story was actually about. I remember all sorts of dialogue from the rest of their library, but not that one. I don’t think Cars will be that unmemorable, it’s just that it’s not what I’m going to remember this movie by.

Another aspect of this movie that sticks out is that you honestly have to been American, or have visited the states to fully appreciate this movie. It’s about Cars. It’s for people who generally like cars and everything that comes with this sort of thing. I’m not a massive car fan in general, although I love Formula 1 (or at least I used to until this year which is driving me [no pun intended] further and further away from the sport) I’m seriously not this car aficionado. My cousins (and especially my brother I’ve noticed) can’t stop talking about cars but I’ve got to admit that the whole topic BORES me to tears. Seriously.

Which brings me onto the elements of the movie that I will remember very clearly and constantly chuckle about. The stars of this movie, wasn’t the animation itself, unlike previous Pixar outings, but rather the characters. It’s all about the characters. In a clever way the creators over at Pixar tried to make a car that everyone could associate themselves with.

My favourite car without a doubt was Guido. The guy was too cute in every sense of the word and he embodied a lot of things that I can relate to intimately. Every scene the car was in (along with Luigi) where the classic scenes. When he shows up at the drag race with the massive Italian style Afro I nearly fell of my seat. His ultimate display of skill in the final minutes of the movie and his subsequent ‘Pit Stop’ were absolutely brilliant. I really want to know what he shouts out in Italian because I’m pretty sure it’s another fantastic set of lines (for all those in the dark he apparently can only say two words in English, ‘Pit Stop’). I will most definitely be getting a Guido for my birthday (I’ve already started hinting to people that I’d like one). The interaction between the army car and the hippy was brilliant. ‘Hey man, RESPECT the classics’. I even found ‘Mater’ mildly amusing.

The guys at Pixar did something different in the final scenes of the credits. Rather than showing ‘outtakes’ like they usually do, they decided to extend things a little bit and actually try and poke some fun in another way. Some parts were pretty damn funny, while others could have done with a little bit more fun injected in them. The little ‘Mack’ section was absolutely hilarious. Really very funny.

‘Cars’ was without a doubt well worth the cash I slapped down to watch it. Was it as good as the other Pixar movies, not really no. It’s terribly tough trying to beat a lot of their movies and I think that’s the problem they face. They bettered ‘A Bug’s Life’ but not the other ones. It had it’s charm and introduced us to some classic characters and a decent yarn to keep you occupied.