Director: John Lasseter
Cast: Paul Newman, Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy*
Have I Seen It Before: Yes. It’s wild that it has been a full twenty years—and I come to the film again now with its 20th anniversary re-release—since I got the end of this movie and decided that a full ten years of invariably great movies had to end some time. The best I could say about the film then was that Michael Keaton was, in fact, in it.
And as we all know by now: For me, that counts plenty.
Did I Like It: This time, I wound up watching it with a room full of children (fear not; at least some of them were related to me) and although that group will tend to chatter, each of them was pretty well enraptured by the film, so it may not matter what I think
I’m not sure how into the world of Cars I might be. I get lost in the bigger questions this film rightly won’t ever answer: If Lightning McQueen (Wilson) and Sally Carrera (Hunt) can have a romantic flirtation, and Lizzie (Katherine Helmond) was married to the founder of Radiator Springs, does that mean that the Cars of Planet Earth procreate? Does no one question why all creatures big and small—indeed, including bugs—have space within them for some other kind of creature to take a seat? They apparently have a deity, or deities, as one character exclaims something to “the manufacturer.” Yet, each car is clearly a different make and model. Does that mean the world of Cars is pantheistic? Did anybody tell Larry the Cable Guy about this before he was on the hook for three films? Was Lightning McQueen born without headlights, pre-destining him to a life as a race car? Was Lightning McQueen born?
Maybe I’m no longer in my twenties, but the lack of essential cleverness in the film kind of works for it now. A longing for a simpler time—when Route 66 was the beating heart of America—gives it all a sweetness, that this proponent of typewriters** and analog cinema projection can certainly relate to…
But seriously, was Lightning McQueen born? If he wasn’t, is he the fabled manufacturer. I’ll be happy to pitch Cars 4, whenever you’re ready, Pixar.
*Yeah, I’m not wild about having to type his full name, either. Even The Rock eventually started going by something other than the name fans first knew him by. I guess before that happens Mr. the Cable Guy would have to become a big movie star. On second thought, maybe I’m fine referring to him by his full name.
**Where’s Disney/Pixar’s Typewriters(tm), you cowards!?