It’s a testament to the ludicrously high standards Pixar has set itself that Cars can be considered in any way a disappointment. It leaves the CG output of every other studio choking in its spectacularly rendered dust, yet somehow, somewhere in this well-oiled, staggeringly beautiful machine somebody has omitted a small but crucial cog. It just doesn’t quite run with the smooth hum of fun we’ve come to expect of history’s greatest animation house.
There is no question that Cars is Pixar’s greatest visual achievement. Those geniuses chez Lightyear have long recognised that the best computer animation is not obsessed with realism but detail(just look at the sinister Polar Express to see how off-putting it can be when that balance is out of whack). Everything in Cars is clearly of a bulbous, shiny cartoon world, but is so exquisitely crafted that the reflection off the hood of a speeding racer or the neon miasma bathing a midnight town is almost enough to make you openly weep in the cinema. There is not a single flaw on the face of this film; it’s like Angelina Jolie with hubcaps.
Pretty visuals are only part of what we’ve come to expect of the Pixar experience, though. As a piece of storytelling, Cars sometimes has a sluggishness that is all the more surprising considering it’s directed by animation god John Lasseter, back behind the wheel for the first time since Toy Story 2. With a core message about getting out of the fast lane and enjoying the slow scenic route, it’s a story designed for a middle-aged man, not a sugar-fuelled pre-teen for whom the fast lane is never fast enough — and like any middle-aged man, it’s carrying a little excess flab.