7 / 10
Official trailer
Cars is John Lasseter’s 2006 Pixar animated film. The film depicts hotshot race car Lightning McQueen who becomes stranded in the Route 66 small town of Radiator Springs while traveling to a championship race. Owen Wilson voices McQueen. Paul Newman voices the retired race car Doc Hudson. Bonnie Hunt voices the Porsche Sally Carrera. Larry the Cable Guy voices the rusty tow truck Mater. Dan Fogelman, Lasseter, Joe Ranft, Kiel Murray, Phil Lorin, and Jorgen Klubien wrote the screenplay.
Pixar Animation Studios produced the film, which grossed approximately 462 million dollars worldwide.
I have a real soft spot for this one, even though I know it’s second-tier Pixar. Paul Newman’s gruff old Doc Hudson moves me every time he’s on screen, and the whole film has an ache for the old highway towns that I find hard to resist. The story is thin and McQueen’s arc runs on rails, but I enjoy the ride.
The work works at lower level than Pixar’s principal late-1990s and early-2000s productions including Toy Story (1995), Finding Nemo (2003), and The Incredibles (2004).
The screenplay generates situations instead of developing characters at the depth that Pixar’s strongest work achieved. The depicted Route 66 nostalgia is central thematic content that may not match younger audience experience. The Newman voice work provides the film’s strongest dramatic element. The result is competent commercial animation that doesn’t match Pixar’s contemporary peak work.
The Newman Performance
Paul Newman’s voice performance as Doc Hudson is the film’s strongest dramatic element. Doc is a retired race car whose experience and past tragedy express the film’s themes about racing legacy and small-town dignity. Newman plays him with a controlled authority, and I think he’s the reason the film has a heart at all. Every scene without him feels a little lighter to me.
The casting reflects production choices about voice contributor selection. Pixar had developed reputation for casting established performers in voice roles where the actor’s specific qualities supported the character development.
The Newman casting represented one of the strongest examples of this approach. The performance shows how committed voice casting can produce character work that the visual animation alone couldn’t have supported.
For Writers
Voice contributor selection can produce character work that visual content alone can’t support. Apply this to creative work broadly. Consider whether your audio or text contributors match the specific character requirements or work at general capability tone.
The Route 66 Nostalgia
The film works around specific Route 66 small-town nostalgia that the wider thematic content develops. The depicted Radiator Springs represents pre-Interstate American highway culture that later economic changes have largely eliminated. The Sally Carrera monologue about Route 66 history provides the work’s central thematic statement.
Sally’s Route 66 speech is my favorite scene in the film. It’s a lament for the towns the Interstate left behind, and it moves me more than anything else in a movie about talking cars has any business doing.
The thematic content may not match younger audience experience.
Children watching the film typically lack the cultural reference that the Route 66 material requires for full emotional engagement. The completed work works effectively as adult animation while requiring younger viewers to engage primarily with surface narrative instead of with thematic depth. This shows how Pixar’s animation could include thematic content that exceeded conventional children’s animation expectations.
For Writers
Thematic content can exceed conventional audience expectations when production targets both primary and adult audiences. Apply this to creative work broadly. Consider whether your work targets single audience or works at multiple levels for different audiences.
The Lasseter Direction
John Lasseter’s directorial approach reflects his accumulated Pixar experience across previous principal productions. The director had developed approaches to ensemble character work, visual comedy, and emotional development across Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, and Toy Story 2. Cars applies these approaches to the automotive subject matter.
The direction reflects personal interests that affected the production.
Lasseter’s documented enthusiasm for cars informed creative choices including the Route 66 setting, the Pixar Cars production design, and the wider nostalgic tone. The personal investment produced creative depth that less engaged direction might not have generated. The film shows how directorial personal interest can support creative production when the personal interest matches audience appeal.
You can feel how much Lasseter loves cars, and I like that about the film. The trouble is that love for a subject doesn’t write a script, and I’d have traded some of the car-nut detail for a McQueen with more going on inside.
For Writers
Personal creative interest can support creative production when the interest matches audience appeal. Apply this to creative work broadly. Consider whether your personal interests serve the audience or are authorial self-indulgence.
Craft Note
Pixar’s production approach on Cars represented the studio’s first major commercial release after the Disney-Pixar merger negotiations. The completed film works inside Pixar’s established production standards but doesn’t match the studio’s contemporary peak work. Major production transitions can affect creative output through accumulated organizational changes.
Is Cars worth watching?
Cars is competent commercial animation that doesn’t reach Pixar’s peak, and I enjoy it anyway. Newman’s Doc Hudson is the best thing in it, and Sally’s Route 66 speech is the scene that sticks with me. It gets a 7 because the heart is real and the town is lovely to spend time in. It doesn’t go higher because the story generates situations where the best Pixar films build characters, and McQueen never becomes as interesting as the cars around him. Watch it for Newman.
