While the other guys are still hawking talking animals, the folks at Pixar continue to up the anthropomorphic ante with terrific characters and crowd-pleasing storytelling that are as much a part of the company's much-deserved success as all that state-of-the-art technology. Given a fan base that spans virtually all demographics, "Cars" will handily take first place in its opening weekend and is destined to emerge as one of the season's biggest performers. After spending the past seven years in an executive producer capacity, John Lasseter logs his first directing credit since 1999's "Toy Story 2" with this soulful road picture about a cocky rookie race car (voiced by Owen Wilson) who is en route to the Piston Cup Championship in California when an unfortunate chain of events lands him smack dab in the sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs.

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