Last Saturday I saw Cars. Before its release everyone seemed to be speculating that Cars would be Pixar’s first “unsuccessful” movie, and in a sense they were right. When Finding Nemo was released it was Pixar’s most successful opening, the same happened with The Incredibles, but Cars broke the trend. Its opening weekend at the box office fell below both Finding Nemo and The Incredibles placing it as Pixar’s thrid most successful opening. But, does that mean anything? Of course not. Cars is every bit as good as any other Pixar movie.

Animation-wise, it looks a lot better than Pixar’s last film (The Incredibles); the lightening effects are amazing and the water is one of the best looking CGI waters I’ve seen lately (not the best ever, but still pretty good). Most of the reviews I’ve read complain about the quality of the voice-acting, but I think that the voice-acting is fine. Maybe it could be better, but it’s not bad at all. The story of the movie, as always with Pixar, is quite good and is helped by the great jokes throughout the movie. Particularly, the jokes at the car cinema during the ending credits are hilarious.

From what I have said up until now, it would seem that I think Cars is just like any other Pixar movie and that it brings nothing new to the table. However I do think that there is a big difference between Cars and the rest of the Pixar movies: the characters. Making a movie where all of the characters are cars is not an easy task. The rest of Pixar’s movies have characters that are either human or easily personified as humans, and in movies that try to convey certain emotions to its viewers this plays a critical role. With characters like toys or even fish, there’s clearly a face through which a character can express its emotions. But showing what a car feels is a lot harder, yet Pixar was somehow able to do this in Cars. My guess is that this is the reason why Cars received more negative comments than Pixar’s previous films. In particular, I think that this is why some people complain about the voice-acting; when there is no face which shows what the voice is supposed to convey, it’s hard to tell whether the voice is right or not.

Overall, Cars is a great movie, and if you haven’t already, you should go watch it. Personally, The Incredibles still holds the title as my favorite Pixar movie, but that doesn’t mean that it’s better, it just means that I like it more.