Cars
2006, directed by John Lasseter and Joe Ranft, starring the voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Keaton, Richard Petty
Another month when we head to the cinema with the words of the critics assaulting our ears – this might be the latest from Pixar, home of hits such as Toy Story, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles, but apparently Cars is a letdown, not worth seeing. Harsh, when it’s a movie the Charman family has been looking forward to all year. But therein lies the secret – you see we love NASCAR racing, America’s biggest motorsport, and Cars revolves around NASCAR – its central character Lightning McQueen a race car that gets lost on the way to a crucial showdown for the Piston Cup and ends up helping a lost town rediscover its former glories.
Now your average movie critic doesn’t understand or care about NASCAR, and some even go in with that fixed view that it’s impossible to make a good racing film. We loved it, and all our friends loved it too. Even if you don’t understand the sport, Cars has all the qualities you expect – a well-told carefully crafted tale with a moralistic side that never lurches into preaching, good characters and great comedy, including loads of visual jokes many of which you miss the first time round. This is particularly true for the race fans – clearly the research was exhaustive and the racing references come thick and fast – if when you see the movie you keep hearing fellow cinemagoers laugh at less than obvious moments, they’ll be the NASCAR fans – and they – and we – don’t care a jot about the critics…