Drag Racer

Reviewed - Cars: Pixar left out a few nuts and bolts when it assembled cars, which has limited appeal despite a few beautifully tooled moments, writes Donald Clarke.

JUST when you thought the films of Pixar couldn't get any better they, well, get somewhat worse. Let's keep things in perspective. If you were to draw an analogy between the work of this era's greatest animation studio and, say, the albums of David Bowie, then Cars would be a weaker LP from the Duke's golden years. It's Lodger. It is not, tempting as the analogy may be, Tin Machine.

As we have come to expect from Pixar, Cars showcases a multitude of dazzling technical achievements. The film tells the story of a smug racing car, voiced by an uncharacteristically vivacious Owen Wilson, who, while travelling to a big race, gets waylaid at a small town in the desert and learns the value of humility (and all that rot).

Marvel at the staggeringly well-rendered waterfall Wilson's Lightning McQueen encounters along the way. Ponder the beautifully constructed geological formations that suggest Monument Valley as photographed by John Ford. Wonder, as you must, what exactly is to be gained from composing such photo-realistic images in the computer, rather than just pointing a camera at the actual landscapes.

Shouldn't animation be encouraged to shape and distort the world? The Road Runner's stark impressionistic desert - all peculiar angles - offered a more evocative backcloth than Pixar's fussy digital version.

What takes place before the elaborate vistas is equally vexing. John Lasseter, back directing for the first time since Toy Story 2, has imagined a world entirely populated by motor vehicles. Why have these creatures evolved to have seats? For whom are those swaying crops intended?

The imagined universe of Cars - unlike that of Toy Story or The Incredibles - does not seem to have been properly thought through. We might, however, be prepared to forgive Car World its logical infelicities if it didn't seem such a bleakly uninviting place. An older vehicle may speak with Paul Newman's comforting voice. The Fiats that run the tYre store in Radiator Springs, the ghost town where Lightning McQueen ends up, may be amusingly Italian.

The four or five known European followers of Nascar racing, that most tedious of American pastimes, may very well enjoy the races that bookend the film and the bizarre fume-ridden universe in which they exist. But, for the rest of us, the notion of a world jammed with wheezing, roaring vehicles - as opposed, say, to one where toys speak - remains profoundly unattractive.

But the film's biggest problem is more basic. It does not concern the audacity that allows a gang of Hollywood millionaires to make yet another film about the joys of small-town life (although that's annoying enough). It's not to do with the film's punishing length (although it could easily lose 20 minutes). Excuse me if I get a little technical here, but the principal difficulty with Pixar's weakest film to date is as follows: The cars look stupid.

Lasseter has elected to place the eyes in the windshield rather than in the headlights. The only other facial feature he has to work with is an over-sized mouth located in the radiator grill. As a result, his cast, whose wheels occasionally act as creepily stubby limbs, are seriously limited in their expressions. Viewers with little feel for the meaning of vehicles - Newman's breed of car is, I guess, some sort of classic - may, thus, struggle to disentangle the personalities of the various characters.

For all that, Cars radiates dedication and class throughout. Pixar fans who worry that the film's flaws may herald the thin end of an unwelcome wedge will be reassured by the brilliance of the studio's accompanying short, One-Man Band. Charming and subtle, it suggests that, rather than crashing disastrously off the overpass, Pixar may just be temporarily waylaid down an unfamiliar side road.