While I’d never call Pixar’s latest animated film a disappointment, it is the company’s first speed bump in their unprecedented reign of unmatched quality. Cars is technically dazzling; it’s almost redundant to say a CGI film is the best-looking ever because the technology keeps improving with time but Cars is incredible to watch. The lushly painted vistas, the way light gleams on surfaces, the blurs of color, the near-photographic likeness of cars themselves, this is a beautifully animated film, obviously. What isn’t as beautiful is the lackluster storyline. I can feel Pixar’s heart in the right place but they don’t put enough effort to touch our own hearts. Cars lacks the depth of Pixar’s other features. The two Toy Story films managed to take a kiddy concept of the secret life of toys when no one’s watching and infuse it with serious moral dilemmas and a mature insight into mortality and community. In Cars, the main storyline involves a cocky hot rod Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) who lives in a glitzy world that revolves around him. He goes off the beaten path and finds himself trapped in Radiator Springs, a tiny town that’s all but been dried up since the interstate took folks away from them. There, Lightning learns there’s more to life than material riches from this eclectic mix of good, honest small-town folk. What I’ve just described to you could be the plot of hundreds of movies championing the likes of small town folk. They surprisingly never really go much deeper, though Paul Newman is terrific as an old time car that had a taste of the glory and arrogance way back.

This is the first Pixar movie to exist in a world without humans, which begs the question how living automobiles were able to construct their world minus opposable thumbs. Cars themselves are weirdly inexpressive creatures.

The climax to Cars is suitable and heartfelt but the movie, at two hours in length, sputters a while in the middle. This is the first film directed by Pixar’s big cheese, John Lasseter, since 1999’s Toy Story 2, so excuse me for expecting a little more. Still, the movie is certainly fun, exciting, more cute than funny, and it has a genuine sweetness to go with its visual prowess. I just wish the 8 credited screenwriters, including Lasseter himself, had revved up their imaginations a bit more beyond the conceptual stage. Cars isn’t a great movie, but coming from Pixar, it’s still very good. Hey, anyone that can make the voice of Larry the Cable Guy tolerable deserves my thanks.

Nate’s Grade: B