A Car's Life: Sparky's Big Adventure (2006)

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Some things I liked some I did not.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This has spoilers. Do you care? I pray not, because if this movie can be spoiled for you, then help your soul, you're going to regret it.There's really just so much nothingness to this movie. The story is about a rambunctious car-child called Sparky. His father has a hard time controlling him, and tells him he'll get in trouble if he doesn't start behaving, and he'd end up like his dead cousin's girlfriend, Diesel. Yes, for some reason, he has a dead cousin. It's really randomly dark. Ah, who cares? You sure won't after hearing the awful shrieking that is Sparky's girlfriend, Speedy. There's also Sparky's younger sister, Gracie, who is voiced by an actual child. The voice acting in this is awful, but everything sounds like child's play comparatively to Sparky's girlfriend, a pink nightmare. The movie then just hangs out at a gas station to conserve on animation of movement where we see the HILARIOUS antics of a car driving in circles for two minutes while everyone just kind of stares (except the pink one, who reminds you that there somehow IS a worst voice actor in this movie). Then Diesel shows up to cause Sparky to be even more disobedient. This eventually leads him and his girlfriend out in the open,when suddenly they bump into Diesel. Sparky, because the plot demands it, finds this suspicious (even though he's never been suspicious of her before), and thinks they should leave, but pink car says no. However, before they can go, they are captured by Diesel who kills cars for their scrap metal. She has the pink one slashed, again being randomly dark, and Sparky all of a sudden is smart and knows the moral. The father rescues him, and the villains are caught, and Sparky learns a lesson in why rules are important.This movie is a nightmare. I'd rate it at a one, but the random dark moments are so amusing that I feel it gets a two just for how it made me laugh at those parts. Unfortunately, my favorite part, the pink car getting murdered, was a cop out and she actually lived somehow. Otherwise, the animation is dull, the movie is at the same, boring pace, and the... "Voice acting"... Will make you reconsider ever criticizing anyone's voice acting again. The humor it tries for is ultimately unsuccessful. The actual funny parts is how the story switches from child disobedience to crime mystery is the funniest part. It really comes out of nowhere. The characters are boring. Sparky: The child who never listens and makes you wish to never have children. Dad: The dad, written like every dad character. He seems mean to his kid but he's only trying to protect him, of course. Diesel: Really creepy woman-car who wants to kill people for their body parts. Sounds kid friendly. Speedy: The ANNOYING girlfriend who advocates that every car, no matter how different, has feelings. So basically, a millennial, only this one has a voice to match the annoying qualities of what they teach. Everyone else: I guess there's a gas pump that's someone to talk to the dad to reveal his dad feelings. There's Sparky's younger sibling, voiced by an actual child, and then there's Diesel's minions.So, basically, every cookie-cutter stereotype for a kid's flick you could have. Only this is not suitable for children. It's a horror film that most adults are frightened by.So, yeah, that's everything you want to know about what you oughtn't want to know. If you are one of the poor souls who must suffer this, my condolences.

That, pretty much, is what one of the main characters of this atrocity sounds like, in text form. I can't say this movie is the absolute worst thing I've ever seen. I even laughed a few times from its sheer stupidity, making it range into the "So bad it's good" category, but it still sucks, which is why I'm giving it a 3 out of 10 instead of, I dunno, a 7. It has all these characters, who are all cars. Now, where in the world did I hear that idea before? It also takes place in the desert. Oh my God! Where could that have been spawned from? It also features a car who learns his lesson at the end. Jesus Christ! I know this came from somewhere! That's right, it's a shameless ripoff of "Cars", which is one of my favorite movies of all time. This is upon a series of crappy animated flicks that are complete ripoffs of other, more superior flicks, and don't even try to hide it. It features the same general character idea, the same settings, the same plot idea. I will eventually review Ratatoing, Kis Vuk, and others of the kind, if I can get a copy of it.

Maybe not quite the worst animated movie ever and it is marginally better than Spider's Web: A Pig's Tale(haven't seen Plan Bee yet, have heard it's worse). But that's saying little, because A Car's Life is a terrible movie and not in an awesome way either. The animation is badly-slapped-together quality, with colours the very opposite of rich, static backgrounds and choppy editing, and the music is forgettable at best and can be over-bearing. The story is predictable but that actually wasn't the real problem, to be honest a lot of movies animated or not are. The problem was that what there was of the story felt very rushed pacing-wise but had very little to it from a narrative perspective, there are a few overlong irrelevant scenes like a car spending a minute doing nothing but screaming and circling round, something that is far more appropriate when on a roller-coaster or theme park ride. The characters are unappealing in every sense.Their personalities are as flat as cardboard but they behave in a way that is irritating and in the case of the villain overly-creepy way, the main character is mistake-prone and never learns from them. The voice acting is even worse, most of the cast are wooden but Speedy's voice provided by Denise Finelli is like the sharpest nails on the squeakiest blackboard- in short incredibly annoying and grating. There are not many characters that you wish serious harm to, mainly because it is a notion you never ideally want to feel, but Speedy is certainly one of them and very high up on the list. The writing was the biggest failure, mainly because it doesn't seem to know at all who it's aiming at. The humour is even crasser and more juvenile than what you'd find in the output of Video Brinquedo(similar quality to what's seen here and Spider's Web but comparatively tamer), which indicates that providing that it doesn't go over their head only children would moderately enjoy.But much of A Car's Life is very adult in tone(initially there's nothing wrong with that, there are animated movies that do take a daring turn and succeed primarily Watership Down, Felidae and The Hunchback of Notre Dame) but even they don't make their violent content, characterisations and messaging(very forced, hardly any lessons to be learnt actually either) verging on sadistic and in a way that would traumatise anybody who's watching. There are exchanges between characters also that have degrees of inappropriateness, at one point child abuse is mentioned and people will be like how is being told to take a bath child abuse and since when has it? And before accusations start rolling in, as much as this sounds like an overly-sensitive parent I am a childless animation-loving music student who's all for taking risks providing they're done well, done well they're not here and come to think of it cigarette-smoking lead characters and characters talking about death doesn't really count as risk-taking.All in all, terrible and won't provide entertainment value in any way, you won't feel any thrills but you will be creeped out. Even the Little Cars movies were better than A Car's Life, and they're awful too. 1/10(would be 0 but despite the negative tone I'm feeling generous today after being blown away by the Met production of Rusalka last night). Bethany Cox

this is a short animated cartoon designed for kids,it integrates classic life lessons onto a child, these life lessons are hard to learn for the child car as there is another car implying classic peer pressure relating to real life. It uses the visual representation of cars instead of people for the fun side of things for kids but as good as the animating was the cartoon defiantly had is bad points, the story was rushed and too fast paced for children, the mistakes and peer pressure forced on the child was of that of a teenagers in witch children who watch will have no idea about and the child car never seemed to be disciplined correctly. In my opinion im not sure what age group this film is aimed at but if you have young children showing them this may teach them about listening to there parents and about peer pressure.