‘Cars’ imagination revved up to overdrive

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo walt disney pictures Stars such as Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Paul Newman and others lend their voices to ‘‘Cars.”

Having seen the movie, I apologize, and promise to repair the claw marks on all the theater’s doorjambs. ‘‘Cars” is not only better than your worst imaginings, but a whole lot better — hood and axles (in the movie’s parlance) above expectations.

Under the direction of John Lasseter (‘‘Toy Story,” ‘‘The Incredibles,” ‘‘Monsters, Inc.”), computer-driven effects continue their remarkable evolution. The moviemakers had their work cut out for them in ‘‘Cars.” The animation field is crowded with claims to greatness. ‘‘Robots” had the giddy effervescence of invention; ‘‘Toy Story,” the twinge of nostalgia; and ‘‘Finding Nemo,” color and a swoon of parental love. ‘‘Herbie Fully Loaded” took the shine off the particular novelty of automobiles as affectionate and emotional, as sort of tin Labrador retrievers.

But the heroes of ‘‘Cars” are human in all but shape: talking, feisty, stealthy, yearning, easily wounded, guarding secrets, lost in wonder. The computer artists, respecting their subjects’ solid metal bodies, had neither faces nor hands to work with. They did, however, work bumpers, grills, windshields, suspension systems and convertible tops into an astonishing range of expressions.

It all seems a bit off-kilter — why cars? Why not the private lives of chairs, sneakers, frat house sofas? It probably has to do with our national love affair with cars, but it turns out the affair was one-sided. In ‘‘Cars,” there’s nary a human to be seen.

In any case, here’s the ‘‘Cars” all-vehicle world, where car-spectators in the grandstands wave flags clutched in their rear-view mirrors and ‘‘Jay Limo” quips on late-night TV.

Cars Rated G. 116 minutes. Pixar animated comedy. Voices of: Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Michael Keaton, Larry The Cable Guy, George Carlin. Director: John Lasseter.

Contrails in the sky look like tire tracks. Spoiled rookie racecar Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) will receive an attitude overhaul as a result of being stranded in the dusty desert town of Radiator Springs.

The town was stalled in a time warp when bypassed by fabled Route 66. Now its car flies doze and its few remaining denizens scan the horizon anxiously for tourists.

These denizens include Mater, a rusty hee-haw tow truck (Larry The Cable Guy); Sally the spirited Porsche (Bonnie Hunt); Doc Hudson, a l951 Hudson Hornet (a burry-voiced Paul Newman) and big-bumpered Sheriff (Michael Wallis).

The town’s tire dealer Luigi (Tony Shalhoub) is, for no discernible reason, Italian. His excitable assistant Guido (Guido Quaroni) is a wee Italian forklift.

‘‘Cars” is indeed a well-oiled machine, tossing off merry puns and slapstick sequences.

One of these, involving mischief to a field of cud-chewing tractors, is hilarious beyond any sensible explanation. The animation is as good as anything ever done, beginning with a breathtaking car race and ending with hyper-real landscapes. It would all be little more than a fun kiddie-car ride, but the movie attempts something deeper. It begins to evoke nostalgia for the best of lost Americana and a time before ‘‘highway” became a curse and a trial.

There’s only one objection: It all may be a little too much.

But never mind. ‘‘Cars” is eye filling and endearing, nothing you’d call a ‘‘constantly mutating masterwork,” but far from just another oil slick on the screen. Consider it cars célebre.

Oh, and the movie is preceded by the enchanting Pixar short ‘‘One Man Band.”