Cars

What’s the Story?

As his name suggests, Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is all about speed. A hotshot red stock car who's poised to be the next champion -- Lightning wants to win the coveted Piston Cup. As the movie begins, he hits the track in a race against two legendary race cars. A dead-heat finale sends these three key contenders off to a showdown. Lightning boards his transport truck Mack (John Ratzenberger) and aims west along Route 66, but he's sidetracked when he falls off the truck in a small town where he meets his life teachers, including Sarge the reveille-playing, surplus-selling Jeep (Paul Dooley), Ramone the hyper-detailed lowrider (Cheech Marin), and new best friend, Mater the tow truck (Larry the Cable Guy) provides the requisite proud-to-be-a-redneck jokes. Sentenced to community service, Lightning tries to escape but eventually gives in. Lightning grumbles on the night shift, but by day, he discovers the beauty of the western landscape, all big skies and grand canyons, the sort of mythic imagery that, according to the movie's nostalgia, families once drove across country to consume.

Is It Any Good?

Colorful and often charming, CARS renders its nostalgia for a mythic past via state-of-the-art technologies. But once Lightning settles into the small town, the door opens for marketing opportunities. The film reframes many youthful fancies as consumable objects, ensuring that movie and NASCAR tie-in products will be in circulation.