Yeah, the physics are just a plugin - you set it up, hit 'go' and it does all the animation for you. The direction, camera-work, lighting and materials are brilliant howver he could have made his own models...
The means justify the end though, and apart from the disappearing tyres, it's fanstastic. The sounds effects I think really bring it to life.
Give it maybe 5 years and real-time graphics will look that good. The main thing making that look believable is the motion blur and the ambient occlusion (where things aren't just lit by a point light source, but by the whole sky area, so you get soft graduations of shadow for things like the underside of the car, or where the corners of the 'bowling alley' walls meet.