film | Engine trouble

The only characters bustling through Pixar's Colorform-bright digi-toon comedy CARS are cars, of course, and they zip and zoom, wisecrack and emote, bat their windshield eyelids and grin with front-bumper smiles, slurp and burp and nap and fart, and also develop romantic feelings for other cars, which, I think, is where the movie honestly started to weird me out a bit. Because i began to wonder about the roles exhaust pipes and mufflers and headlights might play in vehicular intercourse, as well as the larger question of why the heck all these cars with their doors and their trunks and their (presumably) roomy interiors are bustling through an automotive metropolis that's completely uninhabited by mankind. OK, fine, maybe my imagination sucks, but sentient cars just aren't as lovable or endearing creations as the workaday creatures from Monsters, Inc., the crafty ant colony in A Bug's Life, or the bickering figurines of Toy Story. Beyond little boys with Tonka bedsheets and older folks who live in homes slathered in NASCAR décor and Dale Earnhardt commemorative plates, I can't think of many people getting really revved up about Cars.

Anyway, the narrative is bits and pieces of Doc Hollywood, The Majestic and every other film scenario in which a shallow schmuck from the big city — in this case, a hotshot racecar voiced by Owen Wilson — gets stranded in a cozy middle-American fantasyland where a population of saintly bumpkins teach him What's Really Important in Life™: There's Paul Newman as an old-timer Hudson Hornet, Bonnie Hunt as the Porsche next door, and a surprisingly not-totally-obnoxious Larry the Cable Guy as a redneck tow truck. Peppering the lethargic ride are some of the clever asides and funny details you expect from Pixar — gnat-sized Volkswagen bugs dart through the air like insects, a Hummer with an austrian accent stands in for the governor of California, and bonus footage during the end credits are crammed with a ticklish hilarity that recalls the fantastic faux blooper reel from A Bug's Life. But despite Pixar's most superlative animation yet, Cars ultimately isn't interesting or lively enough to warrant a padded two-hour running time, which is especially strange considering that Monsters, Inc., A Bug's Life and both Toy Storys were rowdy fun and emotionally satisfying in the space of 90 minutes. Cars ain't bad, but it runs out of gas long before it decides to pull over. C