 Just about all of the reviews compare Cars with the previous Pixar animated features. Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times, while giving the film a favorable review, nevertheless comments, "The movie is great to look at and a lot of fun, but somehow lacks the extra push of the other Pixar films." Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post sums up: "Cars is a little pedestrian by Pixar standards." Chris Vognar in the Dallas Morning News remarks, "Cars isn't quite up to the emissions standards of previous Pixar fare. The engine takes a little while to get warm, the action skews a little younger than most Pixar products and the "city slicker gets schooled by townsfolk" premise is about as fresh as your father's Oldsmobile." Likewise Joe Morgenstern writes in the Wall Street Journal: "Cars is the first Pixar feature to feel familiar. ... That's a tactic often favored in DreamWorks features but avoided by Pixar until now. It doesn't make Cars a bad picture -- the visual inventions are worth the price of admission -- but it constitutes conduct unbecoming to a maker of magic." Indeed, the film encounters numerous roadblocks erected by critics. For example, Manohla Dargis in the New York Times calls it a "clunker." She observes: "Both in its ingratiating vibe and bland execution, Cars is nothing if not totally, disappointingly new-age Disney." On the other hand, Amy Biancolli in the Houston Chronicle writes, "[Cars] is as bumptious, spangly and cheerful a thing as Pixar has released in 20 years of computer animation." And Claudia Puig in USA Today begins her review this way: "The wizards at Pixar ... never seem to take a wrong turn, and Cars is yet another example." |
