Racing Stripes: Movie & DVD Review (2005)

(Originally published 2005)

The little zebra that could in a film that can't and doesn't.

Frankie Muniz is the voice of Stripes, an abandoned circus zebra who falls into the hands of two people: Nolan Walsh (Bruce Greenwood), a depressed farmer and former horse trainer whose wife died in a riding accident; and his daughter, Channing (Hayden Panettiere), who recognizes in Stripes a zebra who could be as fast as the race horses who tease him from the neighboring property.

If someone would just believe in him--and agree to ride him--Stripes could find himself on a path to greatness. And so Channing rides him (of course she does), which allows for tension to brew at home before Stripes competes in the Kentucky Open.

Only the youngest of tots won't know how this movie turns out; for them, it will work. For others, it's glue, with surprise and imagination stripped from the story.

Designed to appeal to the broadest possible audience, "Racing Stripes" becomes a movie whose gooey sentiment is strangley laced with bathroom humor.

Assisting in the scat jokes are David Spade and Steve Harvey as Scuzz and Buzz, two computer-generated flies who are here to wallow in dung.

Obvious echoes of "National Velvet," "Babe" and "Seabiscut" abound, but the comparisons only sink the film further.Still, Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg and Snoop Dogg are highlights, providing excellent voice work for the barnyard of talking animal cynics who do their best to make Stripes feel like an ass.

Grade: C