Racing Stripes

• Tickets

Movie Details

• Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family
• Release Date: 2005-01-14 Nationwide
• Running Time: 84 min.
• Director: Frederik Du Chau
• Cast: Frankie Muniz, Hayden Panettiere, Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg, Mandy Moore, Joshua Jackson, Steve Harvey, David Spade, Wendie Malick, Joe Pantoliano
• Producer: Lloyd Phillips, Edward McDonnell, Andrew Kosove, Broderick Johnson
• Writer: David Schmidt, Kirk DeMicco, Frederik Du Chau, Mike Samonek
• Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures
• Official Site: Racing Stripes Official Site

For those of you who've been waiting to see a computer-generated horsefly fall into a pile of shit and giddily scoop it into his mouth, your wait is over. The rest of us, though, might want to skip this schizzy Babe rip-off, in which a zebra earnestly trains to be a racehorse while various other farm animals crack wise in the style of sassy sitcom children everywhere. These beasts are voiced by the likes of Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Foxworthy, and Dustin Hoffman. Do the kids this film is aimed at even care who these actors are? Are there eight-year-olds who think, ìI adored David Spade's snarky humor in Just Shoot Me, and he's such a delight in those clever Capital One commercials--I wonder what he'd bring to the role of a flatulent, breakdancing horsefly who imitates MC Hammerî? Or perhaps they're thinking, ìThat Joe Pantoliano did such brilliant character work in The Sopranos and The Matrix--I'd love to see him play a pelican who's fond of strafing others with bird poop while quoting The Godfather and Scarface.î That the movie's scatological ìcomedyî hardly belongs with the somewhat sweet story of its title character and human leads (Bruce Greenwood and Hayden Panettiere) is just one of countless things that seem to have escaped the filmmakers' limited attention. (Derek Nystrom)