Hey folks, Harry here... when the highlight of a trailer are flies doing backstrokes in toilet bowl diarhhea... well, you know ya got something special. JinXy Chaos thought so too. Here ya go...
Hey gang, The JinXy Chaos here with the first of many reviews.
I've been a long time fan of the site and I gotten into a handful of sneak previews this last week and I'll be getting into many more coming up thanks to some big friends in low places.
Sadly I have to start my torrent of reviews with Racing Stripes, The family friendly flick about a farm full of talking animals pushing a Zebra towards the winners circle of horse racing. (at least the next handful of films should prove more fun)
The film is what you'd expect from this type of movie courageous hero's, simple plot, cardboard villains (not played by Hulk Hogan...sadly), and a life lesson to be had. For good measure I took Sméagol my 4 year old son with me so I could not only get the target audience's point of view, but also provide me the drive to go see this movie. The movie clearly tries to follow the "Babe" formula about an outsider trying to excel in a completion dominated by another species. The human characters prove to be nothing but fodder for the plot, they do next to nothing aside from holding the race for the animals to compete....maybe this is how it really is in the animal world and I'm just that guy who can work the can opener.
They only vaguely hint about the death of the girls mother in a horse related accident and neither of them really deal with her death during the film in fact they both give the impression that even though it's only been a short time everything's hunky dory. The zebra is found after the circus skips town, does Farmer Walsh even try to solve the mystery? Nope not really. The animals on the farm quickly accept the little guy and we flash forward a few years.
The message of this movie is suppose to be about overcoming odds and being more then the sum of your parts. Sure it's told with bits of elitist, perhaps even racist tones using the "real" racing horses and their snide owner (played by Wendie Malick from Just Shoot Me). They beat stripes down (literally) , they hold hostages (not kidding), and do whatever they must to make themselves superior instead of just beating this guy on the track.
They never talk about why a Zebra cannot race in the film, and as someone who doesn't know anything about Zebra's I kept expecting a little more of a reason....nope sorry "your short and have stripes" will have to suffice Kid. I think if Farmer Walsh had found a Donkey we'd have a film called Jammin Jackass....or Burrow around the bend. Walsh as it turns out use to be the gran poobah of racing trainers and worked for the villain up until his wife's death...and much like the mob they are trying to pull him back in.
Stripes has a few laughs and a few moments of entertainment, mostly coming from the other animals since like I said the humans are worthless...except for the mailman...he rocks. Dustin Hoffman is actually pretty good here. He's got a great voice, and even a few quips worth a laugh against Joe Pantoliano. Jeff Foxworthy is as irritating as hell, Harvey and Spade give a few laughs as the fly's (poop and fart jokes mostly), and Snoop dogg is wasted...figuratively and literally.
Somewhere during this film Farmer Walsh becomes so confident he bets the farm on Stripes victory in the big race, not sure where this burst of confidence comes from, maybe Bruce Greenwood just wanted out of this film and any possible sequels.
In the end team stripes overcomes odds, genetics to win the race...a race which seems to take three times longer then the average horse race.
If your kids a huge Zebra or Horse fan I suppose this would be your ticket, but for the most part the theater was filled with kids and most the film fell flat for them too. Sméagol was fidgeting to hit the toy store before the middle of the film and when I asked him if he liked it all he could talk about was the fly's.
Poop and Fart Jokes 1 Stripes 0.
End of line.
