saw: cars
If Cars had been made by any other studio it would probably have registered marginally higher on my scale, but given that Pixar's films have earned the right to be judged only against one another, Cars must be received as a sincere but miscalculated bore. Even setting aside my complete ignorance of and bewilderment at so-called NASCAR culture, the movie's a clunker—from its sagging midsection to the filmmakers' problematic decision to place their characters in a world that, lacking the necessary context of human habitation, comes across as profoundly lifeless. Throw in a musical interlude that would challenge the harshest Trey Parker parody in its corniness and you've got a proper misfire. Worst of all, a preponderance of fart jokes and immediately dated pop cultural flotsam suggests the unwelcome influence of DreamWorks' bottom-line mentality. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Grade: C+