The animation from the Pixar crew is as amazing as always. There are scenes in this that are so fantastic, that I could swear I was watching footage of actual cars that were spliced into the film. The racing sequences are exciting, and children will utterly love the race scenes involving Lightning McQueen's sleek model ride, and his battle against the competing racers. Pixar is never one for shoddy animation, and they prove it here. It's always a visual treat.

Maybe it’s because Pixar seems to be attempting to appeal to the NASCAR crowd, maybe it’s because Pixar seems to be glorifying a “sport” that’s really just cars driving around in circles, or maybe it’s because Pixar has created a movie that is preaching about the good days of society when it was more innocent, from a company like Disney that’s basically sterilized and dominated the world with its utterly sickening spree of overpriced merchandise. Turn any corner in Times Square in New York and you’re guaranteed to see something from Disney. And that’s not a coincidence. Disney is the cause of many problems in America, one of which is their sheer monopoly on companies and media, and the contribution to the overall vast consumption that’s ruined how Americans think.

There is a truck named Mac, there’s Lightning McQueen who is quite possibly the most boring hero of the Disney library, there’s possibly the most uninteresting romance between McQueen and a resident of Radiator Springs, and of course the old grizzled car who happens to be an ex-champion of the Piston Cup. I’ve never seen a Pixar film so void of magic, and originality before. Pixar seems to have been pushed into creating a film based solely around cars, for the sake of merchandising for a variety of car companies, because “Cars” just doesn’t have the spirit behind previous entries from the company. There’s just nothing here except a void story that is just utterly dull. Take the idiocy of NASCAR, the soulless corporate presence of General Motors, and the obligatory reference to Tex Avery and you have this vapid concoction. I’m disappointed.

Joe Dimaggio didn’t always have a hit, Bruce Lee didn’t always win a fight, and Pixar doesn’t always create an animated masterpiece. “Cars” feels like a corporate concept, twisted into an innocent story, that really just ends up feeling like a soulless corporate concept in the end. “Cars” is a disappointment if I’ve ever seen it. Great animation be damned.