Cars turns 20 this month, and Moreno Valley gets to celebrate at the multiplex

If you have a kid who has never known a world without Lightning McQueen, or you were that kid yourself back in 2006, here's the news: Cars is rolling back into theaters this week for its 20th anniversary, and it's landed close to home. Harkins Moreno Valley 16 has it on the schedule starting September 17, which means a movie that's been living on tablets and rewatched-to-death DVDs for two decades gets a proper big-screen night out again. For families in the Inland Empire looking for something low-stress and nostalgic to do on a Saturday, this is about as easy a pick as they come.

The bigger story behind Cars is worth knowing before you buy a ticket, because it explains why the movie looks and feels the way it does. This was John Lasseter's passion project at Pixar, born out of a cross-country road trip he took with his family after the studio's early success, and it shows in every frame of desert highway and neon motel sign. Lasseter wanted to make something about the vanishing culture of Route 66, the towns that got bypassed when interstates went in, and he built an entire talking-car universe around that idea of things and places getting left behind. It's worth noting, too, that Lasseter's own legacy at Disney and Pixar became complicated years later when he departed the company in 2018 following workplace misconduct allegations. That doesn't erase what he made here, but it's part of the honest context around this film's anniversary, and some viewers will carry that knowledge into the theater whether they want to or not.

For anyone who's somehow avoided it, the premise is simple: Lightning McQueen, a hotshot rookie race car voiced by Owen Wilson, gets stranded in the dusty, forgotten town of Radiator Springs on his way to a championship race in California. He expects a quick pit stop. He gets something closer to an education, delivered by a cast of small-town cars that includes Paul Newman's world-weary Doc Hudson, Bonnie Hunt's sharp-tongued Sally, and Larry the Cable Guy's tow truck Mater. That's as far as I'll go on plot. If you know it, you know it. If you don't, it's better to let the town reveal itself to you the way it did to McQueen.

Here's the honest assessment, because a re-release deserves one. Cars sits at 75% on Rotten Tomatoes with an average score of 6.9 out of 10, and Metacritic has it at 73. Those numbers tell a consistent story rather than a split one: this is a solidly liked movie, not a beloved masterpiece, and not a disappointment either. It landed in the middle of Pixar's remarkable early run, coming after Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, and by the standard the studio had set for itself, Cars felt a notch slower and more sentimental than sharp. The racing scenes have energy, the voice work is warm across the board, and Paul Newman brings real gravity to Doc Hudson in what became one of his final performances. But the pacing sags in the middle stretch, and the humor leans more on Larry the Cable Guy's brand of broad, kid-friendly gags than on the layered wit Pixar was known for elsewhere.

Watching it again now, twenty years on, I think that reputation holds up fairly. It's not top-tier Pixar, but it's sincere in a way that's aged better than some flashier animated comedies from the same era, and the Radiator Springs stretch has real heart under the hood jokes. For a family outing built around nostalgia rather than discovery, it does exactly what it needs to do.

If you're closer to the mall than to Frederick Street, Harkins Moreno Valley 16 is your spot for this run, with reclining seats that make the nearly two-hour runtime painless for smaller kids.

Facts verified as of September 23, 2026.