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Sunday, June 18, 2006

It's all FAKE! None of that would really happen!

On the subject of film reviews, one of the more peculiar I've seen recently is the review of Disney/Pixar's delightful Cars by the usually-reliable Manohla Dargis of the New York Times. She is peculiarly troubled by the fact that sensors show no life-form readings on the earthlike planet where the cars "live." This concern seems to color her whole review of the film. It's beyond odd. This is an animated fable, for God's sake, from those who brought us living toys and talking ants and fish. But let Pixar wisely omit the usual creepy-looking humans and pass on depicting actual insects in exchange for a sight gag, and it ruins the effect for Dargis:
"Welcome to Weirdsville, Cartoonland, where automobiles race—and rule—in a world that, save for a thicket of tall pines and an occasional scrubby bush, is freakishly absent any organic matter."
But wait, there's more! You also get:
"[T]he story's underlying creepiness . . . comes down to the fact that there's nothing alive here: nada, zip. In this respect, the film can't help but bring to mind James Cameron's dystopic masterpiece, "The Terminator," which hinges on the violent war of the machine world on its human masters. To watch McQueen and the other cars motor along the film's highways and byways without running into or over a single creature is to realize that, in his cheerful way, Mr. Lasseter has done Mr. Cameron one better: instead of blowing the living world into smithereens, these machines have just gassed it with carbon monoxide."
Um, O.K., big nod to Cameron there with the friendly anthropomorphized cars. Uh-huh. Should we be expecting a lawsuit from Harlan Ellison? Call me an insane fabulist, but I think we're supposed to suspend our disbelief and imagine that the cars themselves are alive. Kind of as if they were, say, monsters or talking fish.

Dargis is also bothered by the how the film glorifies the burning of fossil fuels. I'm surprised she didn't question the plausibily of fossil fuels even existing in a world devoid of animal life. Because the sheer illogic of that was a major obstacle to my enjoyment of the film. Fantasy, schmantasy—I want to know where that gasoline was supposed to be coming from!

Dargis's former Los Angeles Times colleague Kenneth Turan has a much more reliable review("[W]hat's surprising about this supremely engaging film is the source of its curb appeal: It has heart."), and wouldn't you know that despite all their history together he manages not to mention James Cameron even once.


posted at 1:25 PM

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