Cars

On Sunday we went to see Cars, another wonderful film from Pixar. The animation was fantastic, as you’d expect from them. And the story itself was pretty good, though the ‘love story’ in the middle of the film was perhaps a bit boring for the younger children (my nephew got a bit fidgety at this point according to my sister).



*****SPOILERS*****

Basically, it’s about a rookie race car, Lightning McQueen, who in the last race ties for the lead with two other cars in the race and the championship. One’s the retiring champ, The King, the other’s a car who has always come second to the champ, Thunder. Anyway, to decide the overall winner their will be a race off between the three cars in a weeks time. After acting a little selfishly, Lightning’s pit crew quit, and we find out he’s embarrassed by his major sponsor and dreams of taking the place of The King. He set’s off in his truck to San Francisco, but the truck gets tired and accidentally Lightning rolls out the back whilst asleep.

He ends up in this little ghost town on Route 66, that’s been bypassed by an Interstate, where he’s arrested for speeding and damage etc, gets sentenced by the local Judge, and the local lawyer suggests he repair the main road through the town. Eventually he makes friends with the locals and even falls in love with the Porsche. Finding out along the way what it’s like to have friends, and that one of the town folk is in fact an ex race car himself, the Hudson Hornet, but that he’s pretending otherwise and who feels bitter at the way he was treated by his sponsors after a race accident. There are some really funny scenes whilst Lightning is in this town, with most the ‘comic relief’ coming from Rusty, an old tow truck who likes nothing better than to go ‘Tractor Tipping’ at night. Just as Lightning realises he’s made some real friends in this town, the world catches up with him, as news crews and his truck come to town. He’s then taken to the race-off.

At the race off, Lightning keeps thinking back to the town and the woman he loves, his mind not on the race, where he’s left for dead by the other two. With Thunder commenting to his crew that Lightning’s not ‘in the race’. Just as things look their worst for Lightning he hears the voice of Hudson, who’s at the track with almost all the town acting as his pit crew, realising his friends are there to help him he’s spurred on, putting in some flying laps to catch up to the others. On the final lap of the race, Thunder, fed up with always being second, rams The King off the track, causing him to roll over and crash out of the race, as this happens Lightning steals the lead, as he nears the finish line he sees what’s happened to The King, and remembers back to what Hudson had told him earlier. He slams on his breaks, stopping just short of the finish line, and sits their idle until Thunder storms across the line to take the win. Lightning then goes back to The King and pushes him to the finish. Everyone goes wild for Lightning with the commentators stating that ‘that’s some real racing’. As Thunder takes the stage to claim his trophy he’s booed by everyone and quickly scurries off to hide, whilst Lightning is offered what he’s always dreamed off. However, he now knows what it’s like to have real friends and decides to stick by his sponsor. We then cut back to the Town, where we see a revival, as cars are coming and going as Lightning started a rumour that he was setting up his head quarters there.

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A good film, well worth going to see if you like any of the other Pixar films. Though I would say it’s more of a Kid’s film than some of the others.