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Comedian Larry the Cable Guy is the voice of Mater and Owen Wilson is Lightning McQueen in Pixar’s Cars.
The strength of Pixar Animation Studios is that the films they produce transcend their subject manner to deal with messages far more universal than they would appear to be. Toys? Charming. Monsters? Heartwarming. A motherless fish and his father? Shamelessly sentimental.
So their latest venture, Cars, should have been lightning in a bottle, appealing to adults and their children alike, and bridging the gap between everyone from NASCAR fans to rich racers like Paul Newman (himself a voice in John Lasseter’s picture). But the parable shtick runs a little thin in this movie, occasionally heading off track.
Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) is a hot shot racer aiming to win the fictitious Piston Cup. Cockiness is his Achilles heel, and his ego only mushrooms as he ties The King (Richard Petty) and Chick Hicks (Michael Keaton) in the race, which sends him off to California for another race to break the tie.
Alas, the trip west has a couple bumps in the road. McQueen gets held up in the quaint Midwestern town of Radiator Springs, where the cars he encounters are honest folk with their priorities in the right place. Bonnie Hunt voices Sally, the Porsche with a past; Larry the Cable Guy plays Mater, a tow truck who bonds with McQueen; George Carlin as a hippie Volkswagen; and Newman is the acerbic Doc Hudson, who knows McQueen’s type all too well. One of the film’s most exciting scenes involves a race between the two — in other words, a dance-off in the West between two disparate generations.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with Cars, but at the same time, there is nothing truly great about it either. The whole plot (credited to no fewer than 10 people) feels a little staid, waiting for McQueen to wake up to the life all around him. Sure, the other Pixar movies’ lessons were equally clichéd, but they had heart. Wilson’s voiceover work barely registers a pulse.
The themes are faux-retro, using today’s technology to recall how yesterday’s values and the simplicity of life in which people stopped to smell the roses, and were more connected because they didn’t have their own cars to separate themselves as easily from each other. Naturally, Cars is technically a marvel to watch. The animation is beautiful and clear as can be, and for the first time in one of these films, I truly found myself wanting to watch more than listen.
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