obviously, the technical aspects were outstanding... but the story... meh. it was alright, but not as well done as the rest of the Pixar classics. yeah you have your lessons (seems to be the "Disney" thing to do), but this particular film made it feel more forced than the previous films, which were... more nature? dunno how to put it quite succinctly.
i never really got interested in the 50s/60s hotrods... but the paul newman vehicle was awesome =). i kinda' saw it in a whole new light. there's just an elegance there. part of the characterization i guess.
one thing that was missed is ka-chow never got real headlights... it's still stickered. i can't imagine how he'll manage to drive @night out in carb. springs.
Missed this in the cinemas and was going to catch it on DVD next month, but I watched it on the plane home.
Pretty good! A worthy addition to the Pixar pantheon, even if it's not amongst their very best work.
I'm not sure that "cameo casting" is necessarily a bad thing, e.g. Jay Limo voiced by Jay Leno, a Hummer politician, maybe Governor, obviously a spoof of Gov. Schwarzenegger (don't think it was his voice -- could've been Leno again), and particularly Michael Schumacher as "himself" (spoke Italian too!) were all great I thought. However, not being from the USA, all the Nascar references were lost on me, although I have heard of Richard Petty before and made the connection with "The King" and #43 etc.
I think this sort of voice-casting works for small or cameo roles, but for the leads, or important supporting characters, you'll simply want the best voice for the character as written. And Pixar has always delivered that. Although considering the credits gags, I'm wondering if John Ratzenberger is becoming self-spoofing? I loved Richard Kind's little role too, and wasn't that also a classic Kind character?
My main problem with the movie was the car world itself. I mean a car's only purpose is to transport humans around. I mean, do these cars get inside other cars and drive around? The city looked strangely vacant with no people walking around. Also, the world had stuff that was clearly designed for a human. How does McQueen dial that phone with the human-finger sized buttons in his trailer? I was constantly looking at their headlights for their eyes (sort of like Benny the Cab from Roger Rabbit). Also the cars really couldn't show affection towards each other except rub fenders or something. All McQueen and Sally could do was just look at each other. But they looked like they wanted to hug. Some of the dialogue didn't make sense either. That one car was shouting, "Von Dutch stripes! Well, that was a guy. They wouldn't even know who Von Dutch was.
I know, I'm supposed to say, "But its just a movie, get over it!" I just couldn't. I really wanted to, because I LOVE cars. Especially muscle cars from the late 60s. The world just didn't make sense to me. Their world just had too many holes in it. The other Pixar films had fully fleshed-out worlds. With Toy Story, for instance, it made sense. It had rules and the characters followed them. What happens when your toys are left alone? There was a connection to the real world. The toys had reasons for existing. Some wanted to be loved by their master, others were mangled and abused. I felt sad for Andy when he lost Buzz. These cars though...do they have a reason to exist?
Also, like others have said, they took the Flintstones approach with some of the names...Jay Limo....yuck.
But it was an awesome technical achievement. That cannot be denied. To get those cars to twist and deform like that...I would love to see those rigs.
At the beg. of the film there is a shot of King, Lightning & Chick during the race with the little info graphic up above that points down to ea. car. One of them isn't even close to the car. I assume this is recognizable to racing fans.
Moved to Official Discussion Thread. Official Review Threads are for reviews! - Mod. (MR)