'Cars' and 'Planes' --A Double Review

Like every two year old boy I think in the history of the world, The Cigarillo loves cars.  And trains.  (We've been watching a lot of Thomas The Tank Engine these days) so the Missus and I, being a little short on kids movies (I think we had The Incredibles and I want to say The Little Mermaid) decided that for his birthday, we'd get him a double shot of fun things he should like, Cars and it's vaguely related spinoff, Planes.

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of Cars, I have a shocking confession:  I had never seen it.  Sure, I'd seen parts of it now and again and there was some weird cartoon on Netflix featuring Mater and his crazy adventures but I'd never actually seen the movie, so I had that going for me- and, somewhat fittingly for Pixar's final independently, produced motion picture before the House of Mouse ate it up, it's a beautiful, fun little movie.

Set in a world populated by talking cars, the film introduces us to it's main character, Lightning McQueen as he's in the middle of a key race- the last one- for the coveted Piston Cup between himself, retiring veteran Strip Weathers and infamous bad guy Chick Hicks.  Lighting (voiced by Owen Wilson) is desperate to win the race so he can ditch his current sponsors, Rust-eeze and move on up to the greener, more lucrative pastures of Dinoco once Weathers retires.  After McQueen ignores the advice of his pit crew and refuses to get tires, he blows one just short of the finish line and the race ends in a tie.

A tiebreaker is scheduled for Los Angeles a week later and McQueen wants to get there as soon as possible- he pushes his driver, Chuck to drive straight through and when Chuck falls asleep, McQueen eventually rolls out of the back of his trailer and, lost and confused blunders into the town of Radiator Springs- wrecking up the main road in the process.  Arrested by the locals, he's about to be sent on his way by the town Mayor, Doc Hudson (Paul Newman) when a local lawyer Sally (Bonnie Hunt) intervenes and convinces the judge that he should repair the damage at least.  He attempts to do so quickly, but does such a shoddy job, he's forced to do it again right and it takes several days.

To make a long story short:  he discovers what's really important in life (friendship, sportsmanship, other treacley lessons) and the movie ends pretty much like you'd expect.

Planes is pretty similar.  Except with planes instead of cars...  the hero of planes, a lowly crop duster by the name of Dusty Crophopper (Dane Cook) dreams of flying in an around the world race and winning air racing glory.   Obviously, since this is a Pixar movie it all works out okay in the end but despite the fact that it comes across as a blatant money grabbing spinoff (the thing practically drips with toy merchandising opportunities) there's a certain charm about it that I enjoyed.  It reminded me a little of Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines and the animation of the various global locales the planes fly to are beautifully done but other than that, it seems to lack the emotional depth that Pixar brings to Cars.

Overall:  Cars over Planes, I'm afraid.  Planes isn't bad, but Cars has more developed characters and takes an oddly nostalgic turn when looking at the town of Radiator Springs and how time passed it by when the Interstate was built.  (The movie is filled with Route 66 nostalgia, actually.)  At the end of the day though, both are quality movies and quite watchable for both kids and adults.