Cars

Time Richard Corliss

The first great movie of the summer.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Whether the movie will make you believe a shocking-orange stock car has a future with a lavender Carrera, it's more fun to follow than a televised freeway chase.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

All told, Cars is a knockout.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Lasseter's inclusive, utterly distinctive sensibility makes Cars all that it can be. His embrace of the comic-dramatic friction between innovation and tradition infiltrates every aspect of the movie - the look, the characters, the story.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

A work of American art as classic as it is modern. Note to tourists: Leave before the very end of the credits and you'll miss some of the best and funniest roadside sights.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

What's surprising about this supremely engaging film is the source of its curb appeal: It has heart.

Slate Michael Agger

Who's this movie for, again? No matter: It's impossible to find more joy in the dark at the moment.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

What Cars teaches is how to blend brash comedy with technical astonishments so that each enhances the other. I can't imagine who wouldn't want to test-drive this one. Like the promos say, "It's got that new-movie smell."

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

On the most basic level, Cars is an old-fashioned fable about an egotistical, talented loner who learns humility and redeems himself by helping unfortunates.

Premiere Ethan Alter

What the film lacks in freshness, it makes up for in great characters, fun vocal performances, and a script with some genuine emotional heft.

TV Guide Ethan Alter

It's the one movie so far this summer that demands to be seen on the big screen.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Cars leaves the animated competition in the dust, even if it is a tad slower and more predictable than Pixar at full throttle.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Tasha Robinson

Cars is a fine example of the formula, with pleasant chemistry, the patented Pixar cleverness, and the usual sweetly melancholy nostalgia courtesy of songwriter Randy Newman.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

There's so much to impress and delight you that the time flies by.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Exciting though the car-racing scenes are, with their millions of fan-cars swaying fluidly around the stadium, it's the drives through the canyons and passes, and the quiet old ruin of a town (which recalls the abandoned mall in Miyazaki’s "Spirited Away"), that truly quicken the pulse.

Newsweek David Ansen

As eye-popping as anything Pixar has done. But Cars inspires more admiration than elation. It dazzles even as it disappoints. This time around, John Lasseter and his codirector, the late Joe Ranft, seem more interested in dispensing Life Lessons than showing us a roaring good time.

The Hollywood Reporter Michael Rechtshaffen

It might not be way up there in "The Incredibles"/"Finding Nemo"/"Toy Story" stratosphere, but the charming Cars is nevertheless a thoroughly pleasant way to mark Pixar Animation Studios' 20th anniversary.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

The Pixar people have an extreme talent for conjuring imagery that is both soaring in its majesty but also resonant -- it's a stylization but acute enough to carry emotional meaning.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

By relying too much on snappy dialogue and by adhering to the philosophy that "steel should feel like steel and glass should feel like glass," the filmmakers have bridled their imaginations and created a movie about toys that are too blubbery and not rubbery enough.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Overall, if the film is not as funny as its predecessors, that's probably part and parcel of why it doesn't seem as enchanting. Emotionally, despite the character arc, Cars doesn't resonate in the same way "The Incredibles" or "Toy Story" did.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I wouldn't have thought that even in animation a 1951 Hudson Hornet could look simultaneously like itself and like Paul Newman, but you will witness that feat, and others, in Cars.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Cars is a classic American tale firing on all cylinders and fueled by organic emotion and a lively sense of adventure.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The movie wins you over through crack comic timing and an awareness that the point of driving isn't how fast you get there but what you see on the way.

Variety Brian Lowry

Periodic bursts of cleverness brighten the festivities, but they're too few and far between, and the trademark humor that appeals to adults and kids often misfires.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

If Cars is something of a letdown, that is not because of the moral messages that it delivers but because of the heavy hand with which it cranks them out.

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Never really quite great, it's still a good enough diversion for the family and should please adult fans of racing.

Chicago Tribune Jessica Reaves

Whatever you do, don't leave before watching the snippets that run during the closing credits--the self-referential, tongue in cheek "outtakes" are quite possibly the funniest part of this movie--a visual stunner that seems to have misplaced its heart.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Cars is certainly watchable, and there's always some amusing bit of business happening at the edges of the frame.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Warning: Cars comes unequipped with two essential options -- charm and a good muffler.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

This one is dully conventional even by family-uplift standards. The details are sweated, all right: It's a triumph of perspiration over inspiration.

Empire Olly Richards

Judged against previous form, this is not Pixar firing on all cylinders, lacking the sophisticated comedy we've come to expect. Judged against fare from other studios, however, it's a triumph.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

At 116 minutes, it's a test not of speed but endurance.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Cars is an elaborate concoction all right. But it feels soldered together from a scrap heap of tired ideas.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

What ultimately redeems Cars from turning out a total lemon is its soul. Lasseter loves these animated inanimate objects as though they were kin, and it shows in every beautifully rendered frame.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

It doesn't make Cars a bad picture -- the visual inventions are worth the price of admission -- but it constitutes conduct unbecoming to a maker of magic.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

And did I mention that it's long? It's long.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Curiously and unexpectedly, the movie brings on a suffocating feeling of constraint. It's a consequence of seeing characters with such terribly limited mobility.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Both in its ingratiating vibe and bland execution, Cars is nothing if not totally, disappointingly new-age Disney.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

If Cars is indicative of the kind of movie we can expect from Pixar post-Disney merger, well, there's always Miyazaki.