Racing Stripes

Having spent years with this poster on the wall of my classroom, I thought this film was a cartoon:


When it turned out to instead feature live-action talking animals, well, I was singularly surprised!

And I do mean 'singularly' - for this was the only surprise in the whole film.

In fact, this tale of a zebra who wants to be a racehorse is so by-the-numbers that it's hard to find any good reason for being told this story. Express that the other way around, and Racing Stripes satisfies all of expectations of it, but has almost nothing to offer of its own.

There are some bodily-function jokes which don't sit well with the cute factor, and the notion that Stripes has grown up never seeing his own reflection is plain ridiculous, but really so what. If forced to choose between either a good or a bad opinion of this, there's really no benefit to me in choosing the latter.

The makers of Racing Stripes may have played the entire thing safe, but who doesn't like to see animals helping each other out?

Well then.

(available here)