Cars
June 10th, 2006I saw Cars today, and while you don’t need me to tell you that a Pixar movie was good, this one I thought was especailly good. What’s interesting about it is that the plot was actually the weakest I’ve seen. In short, a selfish character gets stuck with a group of good hearted people who teach him the value of friendship. The End. What made this movie better than most of the others was the actual details involved. To extend the car metaphore, the movie is like a newer Lotus Elise. That car is literally a Toyota, and not a very good one; but it gets all the details right and makes it look nice.
The details in Cars were subtle jokes that weren’t meant to be laughed at, and which you didn’t even have to get. I’m sure there were a bunch I didn’t get/notice, but the ones that I did were great. Insects were tiny Volkswagon Beetles with wings. When they “walked” across a dirty window they left tiny tracks where they’d rubbed away the dirt. Click and Clack were the voices of a couple of cars (they were brothers in the movie) who told their usual jokes and at one point did the “Don’t drive like my brother” bit. You didn’t have to know who the voices were to enjoy the characters, but it was there. There’s a drugged out VW Bus who sells Organic Fuel, a semi named Mack whose air break is subtely altered into a trucker cap, and a couple of groupies who (I shit you not) flash their headlights at our heart throb protagonist. All of these little things kept me interested instead of the plot which I think, for me anyway, actually worked out better than having them be absent, but with a better plot.