Racing Stripes
2005  - Comedy, Childrens

 

Review by Donner

Warner Brothers Presents
Racing Stripes

Reviewed 2.11.2005

Directed by Frederik Du Chau

Story by David Schmidt & Steven P. Wegner and Kirk De Micco & Frederik Du Chau

Screenplay by David Schmidt

Starring M. Emmet Walsh, Michael Clarke Duncan, Michael Rosenberg, Fred Thompson, and Hayden Panettiere

Rated PG for mild crude humor and some language

FUN FACT: It's not odd for a zebra to think it's a horse. After all, one of the most famous television horses of all time was actually a zebra. Who was the horse? Why, it was Mister Ed of course!*

*Actually, this fun fact is a fun false.  Looks like I was the victim of a practical jokes by snopes.com!  Oops!

I’m trying to get all the January releases out of the way and over with. Now, in case you don’t know, January is the absolute worst time of the entire year to catch a movie. Since it’s not a big month at the box office, all of the junk from the major studios gets dumped here from lousy Michael Keaton supernatural thrillers to the worst romantic comedies starring Ashton Kutcher. January is simply my least favorite time of the year to go to the movies and, with my review of Racing Stripes, January of 2005 will be over for me.  Thank the Lord and pass the amunition!

Racing Stripes is a simple and uncomplicated kiddie movie about a talking zebra raised on a farm who wants to become a racing horse. All the animals talk and have celebrity voices from Dustin Hoffman and Whoopie Goldburg to Jeff Foxworthy and Snoop Dogg. Frankie Munitz provides the voice of the young zebra named Stripes, not surprisingly.

As I pretty much expected, Racing Stripes is a cute but thin fantasy preaching an easily absorbable message for the little ones: be yourself, racism is wrong, and it doesn’t hurt a couple of months to wait for a movie to hit Blockbuster.

I didn’t really like this movie a whole lot despite its cuteness and I have heavy doubts that anyone else over the age of nine will either. This is sad because the set up of the film actually intrigued me… it’s just too bad that the writer and director chose to bury the well-intentioned plot in a bunch of lame first-grade humor and gross out gags that seem to be strangling children’s movies today.

That being said, Racing Stripes isn’t all bad. There are some funny parts to it, some sweet parts as well, the celebrity voices are quite nice, and there are even some witty moments that poke fun at The Fast and the Furious and other racing car movies.

Still, this movie paints broad generalizations in the character department… the good guys are good and the bad guys are just unbelievably mean. Racing Stripes is just a very generic, paint-by-numbers, and predictable movie.

The kids may like this one, but adults will probably be racing for the door.