Doc Hudson (voiced by Paul Newman) and Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) are ready to race in "Cars," an animated comedy that lacks the wit of previous Pixar flicks.

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Review: Weird scenario drags down 'Cars'

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'Cars' exists in a world in which people have been somehow eliminated — maybe the phenomenon we know as car accidents has nothing to do with accidents after all and everything to do with murderous rebellion.

Having tired of such humiliations as junkyards and faux-wood siding, it could be that cars have a plan to pull a "Matrix" on us and take things over for themselves.

Such thoughts may do U-turns in your head as you sit through "Cars," a Pixar animated comedy in name only. You've got to give your brain something to do to pass the time, because what's onscreen in the surprisingly lifeless comedy certainly doesn't cut it.

None of the pop-culture-referencing wit from such Pixar classics as "Toy Story," "Monsters Inc." or "Finding Nemo" is there. Nor is there a heroic character to cling to. Directed by John Lasseter, the movie clunks along like a beat-up VW bus rather than the Cadillacs that Pixar has trained audiences to expect.

The problems start with the initial disconnect of a world that couldn't possibly exist. It's easy and fun to imagine the microcosmos of "A Bug's Life" or a realm of a child's imagination in "Monster's Inc.," but a world in which cars gather at racetracks, filling up stands to listen to car announcers and watch cars race is too weird to fathom.

There's even a car that talks like Jay Leno and tells jokes on late-night TV. It's some consolation that, judging from the film, a world run by cars is still stuck with dull, irritating Leno humor.

The superstar racer is Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson), a hotshot who finishes in a three-way tie for the championship. A tiebreaker is set for the next weekend in California. While McQueen travels on Route 66 with his not-so-trusty trucker pal, Mack (John Ratzenberger), McQueen gets lost and stuck in the forgotten desert town of Radiator Springs. As arrogant and uncompromising as Barry Bonds, McQueen wrecks the town's main thoroughfare and is sentenced to fix it before he's allowed to leave.

McQueen is miserable with his plight and tries to escape a couple of times, but soon the town grows on him. There, he meets a foxy vehicular love interest, Sally (Bonnie Hunt), and develops under the mentoring of the wise town elder, Doc (Paul Newman). Whether McQueen softens, discovers that winning and egotism aren't everything and helps put the town back on the map, you'll have to see for yourself.

Radiator Springs is populated entirely by ethnic stereotypes. You've got Italian tire shopkeepers (Tony Shalhoub and Guido Quaroni) who speak in thick accents and go on and on about their love for Ferraris; Ramone (Cheech Marin), a ghetto-fab Latino lowrider; and Flo (Jenifer Lewis), the loud black female who owns a gas station.

As if to offset any accusations of prejudice, McQueen's sidekick is a Caucasian stereotype, namely a slack-jawed, buck-toothed yokel tow truck called Mater. He's voiced by Larry the Cable Guy with such exaggerated moonshine-soused hillbilliness that he makes "Hee Haw" seem refined by comparison.

All of this sloppy characterization would have been forgivable if the cars had funny things to say, but the script is mainly a succession of bad car puns such as "hood on a platter."

There's as much humor in any 30-minute segment of the movie as there is in your average 30-second Chevron talking-car commercial. You'd do best to save the cash you might spend to see "Cars" and divert it to your gas tank.