'CARS" leaves the animated competition in the dust, even if it is a tad slower and more predictable than Pixar at full throttle.

There's a lot of heart under the hood in this tale of an all car world - even insects are tiny Volkswagen bugs - which has been rendered with stunning, photo-realistic detail.


Our seriously flawed hero is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a brash, egotistical rookie race car who thinks he has the world by the tailpipe.

After a dazzling opening race, Lightning is accidentally stranded by his van (Pixar mascot John Ratzenberger) in a sleepy Southwestern town called Radiator Springs, where he tears up a little-used stretch of the legendary Route 66.

The town's grumpy judge, Doc Hudson (a superlative Paul Newman in an inspired bit of casting), sentences Lightning to repair the damage as community service.

Will Lightning learn humility and the pleasures of slowing down?

Will our hero return the neon-lit Radiator Springs to its glory days before it was bypassed by the interstate in the 1960s?

What exactly is Doc Hudson's secret - and will he reluctantly mentor Lightning?

And will Lightning engage some G-rated auto eroticism with Sally (Bonnie Hunt), a Porsche who left behind life in L.A.'s fast lane?

Even the youngest audience members will see the answers a mile off, but it doesn't seriously diminish the entertainment value.

Besides Newman, the standout in the voice cast is Larry the Cable Guy (ne Daniel Whitney), who is extremely funny as Mater, a redneck tow truck who appoints himself as an annoyed Lightning's best friend.



It's Mater who engineers the most hilarious sequence, when he and Lightning go cow tipping in the middle of the night - except that the cows are tractors.

The voice cast also includes George Carlin (as an organically fueled Volkswagen bus), Jeremy Piven (as - what else? - Lightning's agent) and racing legends Mario Andretti and Richard Petty.

But the colorful characters are truly brought to life by the geniuses at Pixar, most specifically by company founder John Lasseter - personally directing a film for the first time since "Toy Story 2" - and his co-director, the late Joe Ranft.

Going against the longtime animation convention of using headlights as the eyes of anthropomorphic cars, they opt instead for the larger and more expressive windshields.

While the idea of talking cars may not sound appealing, they're far more engaging than the talking animals that have come to dominate contemporary animation. And the eye-popping backgrounds alone are worth the price of admission.

This is an elegiac and deeply nostalgic movie - not only for an idealized American past but for past "Pixar" hits, which are hilariously recast with all-car casts during the closing credits.

"Cars" somewhat self-indulgently runs nearly two hours - but overall, it's well worth the trip.