Cars

This is the one where Pixar dropped the ball.

There's nothing wrong with the film. The animation is superb, the characters are funny, the jokes are fine (if a little thinner on the ground than usual). But the plot is just the run of the mill "bad boy gets caught in hick town, learns the value of friendship", done a hundred times before, just here with the characters being cars. It's too Disney-esque and trivial. Since it's the density and complexity and unexpectedness of the plotting that makes Pixar films above average (see the end credits for the best examples here), we know how much better this could have been.

Rating: 3.5

[ unmissable | great stuff | worth watching | mind candy | waste of time | unfinishable ]

reviewed 27 December 2010