RANDOM REVIEW OF THE DAY: Racing Stripes (2005)

There are some movies that have a creative premise that is so enjoyable you get immersed and invested in them, then there are some movies that have a semi-interesting premise but yet it is executed poorly and just turns out to be an awkward experience. Racing Stripes is one of those movies that is poorly executed and awkward experience. Racing Stripes is about a abandoned circus zebra named Stripes, voiced by Frankie Muniz, who is taken in by a farmer (Bruce Greenwood) and his daughter (Hayden Panettiere). Stripes then witnesses horse racing and dreams to be a racing horse. Despite the prejudice among other horses that he is different, Stripes is determined to be a racing horse to win a big race in order to win money for the farm, and he trains with the help of his farm animal friends. The only word for me to describe this film is boring. The characters are boring, the tone is boring, if there is any intentional humor usually falls flat or tries WAY TOO HARD to be "hip" or "cool", the usual of what I would expect out of a movie like this. Which is to be honest very sad because I think the premise is kind of interesting, yet it's nothing special. But I have no doubt the filmmakers could have had fun with it if they wanted to. Why I say this is because I think movies like this would work better if it was animated. If you know me then you know that I really have a distaste for movies with lip syncing live-action animals to make it look like they are talking. To me it is not creative, it's dull, lazy, awkward, and it just does not look right. Maybe it can work in some movies, I hear Babe is really good but it has been a while since I have seen that. The way the animals talk does not seem interesting, they just make head movements  and gestures and they expect us as the audience to believe that these animals are interacting and having conversations. All you see his head movements and all you hear is voice dubbing by celebrity voices. It just looks very unprofessional to me. When doing this method, the audience is not allowed to see the emotion through the characters' eye or their facial expressions and it seems deadpan and boring. Why is this? BECAUSE THEY ARE ANIMALS! WE AS HUMANS FIND IT HARD TO REALLY KNOW WHAT AN ANIMAL IS THINKING! BECAUSE THROUGH OUR EYES ALL THEIR FACIAL EXPRESSIONS ARE THE SAME! And it does not help that the characters themselves are a complete bore. The main character Stripes is not very interesting. He is just the typical rookie with nothing that qualifies him worthy for the audience to root for him. There is also his love interest, played by Mandy Moore, but again nothing special you just see a horse looking into space making gestures and hearing Mandy Moore's voice coming out its mouth. There's also the zebra's trainer a pony played by Dustin Hoffman, but again there's an animal with a celebrity voice, nothing special. There's even a dog played by rapper Snoop Dogg, get it (sarcastic tone). But even then the dog doesn't do nothing but say two lines and go to sleep. Which clearly means that they only wanted to get a rapper voice to seem "hip and cool" to the kids. It is not called being "hip and cool", it is called insulting the children's mind by thinking you can win them over with celebrity voices and pop culture references and jokes that will die out in the next six months. When you don't have the sufficient enough talent to have an interesting story along with fun an interesting characters, you baked yourself a good ol' "who gives a hoot forgettable family movie" cake. Sorry I could not think of a better comparison. That is what thinking about this movie did to me, just lower my creativity. I really, REALLY have a distaste for movies like this, because above all the forced celebrity voices, pop culture references, and fart and poop jokes, there is a presence of boredom and  mild creativity, despite the semi-creative premise. Which is why I say that this movie should have been animated that way the characters could have been more colorful, developed, and actually be able enough to have the audience to be emotionally invested in them. What we get is a mediocre and poor product with little promise even when going in for the first time. Grade: CR