Cars Reviews
ComingSoon.net
Cars is a nice homily to small town life and remembering the past - which definitely has its charms - and call for remembering our roots, but it's been done better elsewhere.
Full Review
| Original Score: 6/10
CHUD
Cars runs out of gas long before it reaches the finish line. With twenty minutes cut it could have been a contender, but it's the worst Pixar film to date.
Full Review
| Original Score: 6/10
Palo Alto Weekly
Make no mistake - Cars is still the best animated film this year. But with Pixar behind the wheel, the film should have cruised to must-see status. Instead, it stalls.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Arizona Daily Star
All of this sloppy characterization would have been forgivable if the cars had funny things to say, but the script is mainly a succession of bad car puns.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
CinePassion
Pixar's grown so metallic that having automobiles for animated characters becomes disturbingly apt
eFilmCritic.com
Cars is the first Pixar flick I'd describe as "cynical," and that, frankly, breaks my heart just a little bit.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
Slant Magazine
Musty, corny, and largely devoid of any enchanting magic, it's also the pioneering Pixar's first effort that, trailblazing technical virtuosity be damned, feels disappointingly regressive.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Top Critic... both in its ingratiating vibe and bland execution, Cars is nothing if not totally, disappointingly new-age Disney ...
| Original Score: 2/5
FilmJerk.com
2004's dazzling Incredibles promised Pixar was growing up and willing to try new things. Cars is incontrovertible proof that promise was not kept.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Bullz-Eye.com
It feels like one of Pixar's less imaginative rivals trying to make a Pixar movie, but falling into the tired trappings that Pixar, up to this point, has deftly avoided. It is also two hours long, which is about 30 minutes longer than it needs to be.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/5
The makers of Doc Hollywood called. They want their movie back.
Rips off Doc Hollywood, almost note for note.
| Original Score: C+
Cinema Crazed
I've never seen a Pixar film so void of magic, and originality before...
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Big Picture Big Sound
The rote melancholy song by Randy Newman evokes more laughter than compassion.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
The voices are great, a handful of puns are funny and the last half-hour is the Pixar movie we've expected to see. But that stalling sound in the opening race of "Cars" is Pixar's first-ever sputtering-out of imagination and immersion.
Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4
eFilmCritic.com
Calling it a borderline lazy effort in the script department would be assuming that the eight credited writers actually put forth an effort beyond just watching Doc Hollywood one night.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Cinemalogue.com
...scenes involving the colorful townspeople, capitalizing largely on Paul Newman's skill at playing wise yet ostensibly cantankerous old men, are repeatedly interrupted by long stretches of boring homages to the world of celebrity...
Flick Filosopher
[T]hey're cars! But they're people! But they're cars! Huh?
At almost 2 hours, the movie, well, exhausts its welcome, somehow managing to be simultaneously frenetic and leaden.
Full Review
| Original Score: C-
Cars gives you plenty of time to think, some of which you may wish to use wondering why it isn't a better movie.
| Original Score: 2.5/4
