Cars is one of those “in-the-moment” films. It’s the kind of thing that makes us realize that sometimes we have to slow down, take a break from Fellini and Bergman and Kurosawa, and just let reality slip out from underneath us for a few hours so that we can enjoy ourselves. I mean, isn’t that this film’s very message to begin with?

This means that if we drop all of our outside bias and simply let the film exist for us as we are watching it than it works remarkably well as family entertainment. It is warm, funny, and surprisingly touching as it races into the third act. Pardon my pun. However, this also means that Cars does not stack up when placed beside the timeless classics such as: Toy Story, Shrek, Robots, Finding Nemo, and certainly not the Polar Express.

Maybe the film’s fault is that cars simply aren’t that interesting. It would seem that, with the exception of Mater the tow truck with his wench and Guido the forklift, all of the vehicles are more or less the same. All they can really do is race and talk, and since only a few of them are racecars, most of them simply talk.

This is all in good fun though as the cast is made up of a wonderful array of voice talent, which includes Owen Wilson, George Carlin, Michael Keaton, and Paul Newman as Hudson Hornet, an old racecar who was once unbeatable. However, Cars doesn’t have the key ingredient which separates the good animated features from the greats. The best animations are the ones which suck us in by creating vast new worlds for us to explore; some of which lurk just below the surface of reality (Toy Story, a Bugs Life, Finding Nemo), some of which are completely original (Robots, Shrek.) and some of which use reality as a vehicle for satire (The Incredibles).

Cars, however, does not reap the pleasures of creating an entirely new world to experience, as its two primary locations seem to be situated somewhere in the real world, and although no humans are ever mentioned or seen, Jay Leno does show up as a car with an uncharacteristically large front bumper. One location is of course at the racetrack, and the other is Radiator Springs, located in Carburetor Country, an understandably common place that could pass as just about any small town in America, with the possible exception that most small towns don’t have motels made out of pylons.

Where Cars excels though is in its ability to tell a likable story, which involves likable characters, voiced by likeable people. Wilson voices Lightning McQueen (no doubt a reference to Steve McQueen, whose car chase in Bullitt has become one of the most famous ever filmed), a rookie whose dream is to win the Piston Cup.

After a history making three-way tie, a make-up race is scheduled to take place in California in a few days. After a freak accident late at night occurs on the interstate, Lighting unknowingly falls out of his transport truck Mack, and finds himself on Route 66 to Radiator Springs, whose main street he destroys in a panic. From there, the story proceeds to become such standard fare that if Cars were not a creation of first rate three dimensional animation from Pixar Studios, one would probably feel obliged to criticize its redundancy.

In Radiator Springs, the cocky Lightning meets an array of colourful characters after he is forced against his will to stay and repave the road that he destroyed. The residents believe that a freshly paved main street will bring tourists. They have not seen many a traveler through their little town since the interstate was built, bypassing the town in order to save ten minutes or so. People would rather save the time than waste it on sightseeing in the small mountain town. Cars is not social commentary though, and so whether or not Lightening will come to his senses, realize that life is about the friends who you share it with and not individual glories, and if he will make it to California to compete in the big race, I will leave for you to discover.

One of the cars, which Lightning meets, is Mater, a tow truck who runs a towing business called Tow Mater. Get it? Maybe it would help if I told you that Mater is voiced by the increasingly popular comic Larry the Cable Guy. Larry the Cable Guy has become a unique entertainer who has found success in the humor of everyday blue-collar life.. As Mater, just as all of the other performers, the Cable Guy is given the freedom to tap into his genuine likeability to create one of the films most lovable characters. A character, who also gets the biggest laugh as he and Lightning sneak into a resident field for a late night game of tractor tipping.

As mentioned before, it is in the third act when the film gives up on simply being cute and clever and finds its emotional centre. And let me tell you, redundant as it may be, by the end, Cars had me, as I was surrounded by so much joy and humour and good spirits that I smiled my way to the finish line. Excuse that pun as well. Cars may not be Pixar’s greatest achievement, but it manages to be sweet and touching and funny by taking a cast of recognizable talent and using them to create lovable individuals who we can relate to and care about out of something as everyday as a car. And sometimes my friends, that is simply all it takes.