Racing Stripes

Review by Clint Morris

Equipped with stars aplenty, an effective effects budget and a warm template, Racing Stripes unquestionably deserves a place in the family flick quadrella, but don't bet too much on it though, it's far from a 'win' for the genre.

Whilst 'talking animal' films of yesteryear, notably Babe, have succeeded in combining both a warm horde of characters with an even more warm and fuzzy script, Stripes loses points right out of the gate - the script seems to have been left in the stables.

The plot of the film can be summed up faster than a dog downing dinner: A zebra (voiced by Frankie Muniz), who thinks he's a race horse, proves to be pretty fast on his feet and as a consequence Nolan Walsh (Bruce Greenwood), a former champion horse trainer turned farmer and his young daughter, Channing (Hayden Panettiere), decide to enter him in the Kentucky Derby.

Interwoven between the few scenes with the live actors - who also include Wendie Malick as a cold-hearted track owner, and M.Emmet Walsh as an amiable 'track rat' - is a second element to the movie: the farmyard animals who strike up conversation whenever their owners aren't around.

There's wise-old goat Franny (Whoppi Goldberg), an old-time pony (Dustin Hoffman), a sweet-as-sugar filly called Sandy (Mandy Moore) and a cheeky mobster pelican (Joe Pantoliano). Together, they all help 'Stripes' become the little Zebra that could.

Racing Stripes doesn't seem to know what it wants to be; it's part coming-of-age family drama, part Babe clone, part hideous kids outing…if it had simply picked one of those genres and stuck to it we might've had a better movie on our hands.

2 out of 5

Racing Stripes
Australian release: Thursday January 6th
Cast: Bruce Greenwood, Hayden Panettiere, Wendie Malick, M.Emmet Walsh, Gary Bullock, with the voices of Frankie Muniz, Mandy Moore, Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Joe Pantoliano, David Spade, Michael Clarke Duncan, Joshua Jackson, Jeff Foxxworthy, Snoop Dogg, Michael Rosenbaum, Steve Harvey, Fred Dalton Thompson.
Director: Frederik Du Chau.
Website: Click here.

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