Flickers-4

I thought it was fine...maybe it's not a classic, but thought it was better than 3... it's a fun movie...maybe not rush out and buy it kind of movie, but 3D was pretty good, except for one wobbly scene around Hemsworth's head during a walk and talk on the island. the background just around his head looked like a force field.

I don't recall the movie being as bad as the previous poster laments, but it is the first time I saw a movie of a person I knew something of his historical record and how they played loose with the details for dramatic license (I read his massive autobiography 5 times at least--a big book for a 13 yr old to read then--and several of his other books, including his version of the ordeal at sea depicted in the movie and Capt. Cherry's version "We Thought We Heard the Angels Sing"). I was "outraged" as any hero worshiping teen could be when they changed incidents in the movie that I knew happened differently (hey! That didn't happen that way!). but from this movie, I did learn the lesson of what that disclaimer means "Though based on actual incidents..."

...just like for Finding Nemo--how are they going to tell a story with fish? Well, let me tell you, I cried as much, if not more, in this movie than in Nemo. The critics were looking for the "wow" in the story. It is kind of hard to top "The Incredibles." Yes, there are plot pieces we've seen before (the main review on the page today does compare Cars to "Doc Hollywood") but each Pixar movie finds human truths that the other studio's computer animation films lack. I like and laughed harder at some scenes in "Over the Hedge" than I did in Cars, but which one will I remember more? Car's end credits had just as much belly laughs as did all of "Hedge" BTW.

Pixar has created a tribute to our driving history: Route 66, the tee-pee shaped motels of the west, the little one stoplight town, and the old school NASCAR before it became what it is today, all of those simple things that we speed by on the interstate. I cursed AAA for putting me on a side rode a few years ago when I found later that I could have driven a less direct, but faster route on an expressway. I was on a timetable, but I would have missed the unique character of the landscape.

They made all the cars believable living creatures, something I doubted they could have sustained, but they did. They even captured Owen Wilson's smarmy charm and facial expressions. They also made me forget Ardman's Chevron Cars, something I was afraid they would begin to resemble.

The basic story, though maybe not all that original, mines the truths in life from what is there. Honor, love and friendship are more important than anything. Themes that run through out the Pixar films--and some critics complained about that!

I haven't seen this movie since 1981 or so, but somewhere I still have a rotting video tape of it's first airing. I remember it to be very good, and Suzy Gilstrap as the wheelchair bound dreamer inspirational (and she was very cute). Bette Davis gave a very fiesty performance, and maybe it was a little over the top, but she was still very strong and at the top of her game before she had her stroke a few years later. This was also, it seems, Ron Howard's first "serious" movie (the others seem to have been low budget noisy films, love that Grand Theft Auto) and it kinda shows the themes of some of Howard's future projects--people overcoming obstacles to obtain a dream or just to survive.