Racing Stripes
Johnny Logan reviews the UK DVD release of Racing Stripes and finds a technically excellent film that's let down by a very poor script and poor voice acting.
Stripes is an abandoned zebra, who through a rather convoluted route becomes a race horse and wins this films equivalent of the Kentucky Derby. Not only can the small legged zebra beat the enormous horses that it is set against but it can also talk. Yes, it is a live action and animation piece that stretches credulity to such levels I think it may even be beneath some of its potential younger viewers.
The abandoned Stripes, is collected by a farmer and taken back to his farm where he becomes the object of affection for his young daughter. On arriving, Stripes is greeted by the rest of the farmyard animals who have voices provided by Dustin Hoffman, Whoopi Goldberg and Joe Pantoliano, who was excellent as one of the foul mouths in MIDNIGHT RUN. Everyone neglects to mention to Stripes that he is a zebra and thus begins watching the thoroughbreds on the adjoining farm, convincing himself that he wants to race like them. Upon getting down to that farms race track, Stripes comes to the attention of Woodsey, played by the ever excellent M. Emmet Walsh, who convinces his new owner to train him up, as he believes he has got an excellent pedigree. After hesitating and falling out with his daughter over this issue he finally relents and the final seeds are sown. He is trained and yup, surprise, he wins the race. The end.
It is hard to think what the filmmakers were imagining. The story is so trite and ridiculous, that its core audience must be children, however with a string of jokes based around pop and film culture, one can only think that it was one of those films that has attempted to capture the youth and adult market. This in itself is its biggest downfall, as it falls between the two camps and becomes nothing more than a piece of chewing gum, and not only chewing gum but chewing gum of the pepper flavoured variety The animals keep popping out really bad one liners that for anyone with one brain cell will be sat at home grimacing. The human actors are either boring, poorly drawn or charactures, and the animals, the films drawing point, all seem to have the wrong voices to their personas. Take the porch dog, voiced by the truly dreadful Snoop Dog, or Whoopi Goldberg’s boring Goat, Frannie. The animation is fine but the dialogue, humour and seeming enthusiasm seems to be lacking, maybe for those aforementioned reasons. We are also exposed to Buzz and Scuzz, two flies who rather originally keep doing burp and fart gags, which in itself is no problem, it’s just that the timing and jokes are nothing more than a wet fart and as such are nothing more than annoying again. In fact the only positive is that the animation itself is expertly executed. Once again, so disappointing that the technical genius on display in films can not be matched with a good story sense. Or to be more precise, that the technical support is only backing up a clueless director, producer and writer. This is Hollywood clearly showing signs of its own demise, or trying to cut its own throat, if it is possible for a collective entity with so many disparate parts to do such a thing.
The DVD does come though with many extras, that may amuse any child that is still it its look, stare and dribble phase.
1. ALTERNATE ENDING (1min 25 secs)
This is an add on scene that ends with all the principle characters and cartoons trying to come up with funny names for the hybrid zebra/horse that Stripes and his girlfriend Sandy (a white horse) produce after the racing finale has finished. Being the worlds most humourless person, I found this ending unfunny, unoriginal and overall puke inducing, but that said it is better than the original ending
2. BARNYARD OUTTAKES (7 mins)
This is broken up into 4 sections, one for four of the animals showcased. The longest one is for the two flies. Some of these are still in the previsualisation animation stage and are nothing more than a collection of extended sequences or fart jokes that were omitted before the final cut was presented. Snoop Dog also gets a few more moments, making it clear why his part was so small in the finished film. The annoying cock (and I don’t mean the films director) also weighs in with 3 mins of additional humourless one liners, as does Goose the gangster pelican, voiced by Pantoliano. These are hit or miss, if you like the film I am sure you will like this section
3. HOW TO MAKE ANIMALS TALK (6 mins)
This is the creative guys telling us how they made the animals talk. Worryingly, the director informs us that this whole film was storyboarded and voiced before they actually began shooting the film. Rather worrying because large numbers of adults must have seen this ‘initial film’ and no one it seems had the strength to tell the chief whips that it was a pile of garbage. Very worrying! Anyway, when the animators start explaining their roles and how they did what they did it becomes more interesting. In fact, this is probably the best part of this DVD.
4. ANIMAL ACTING (10 mins)
This section sums up the film for me. We are treated to a voice over by the guy (acting as Stripes) who voiced the zebra. He talks us through the five stages of getting animals too talk. It is hard to feel like this section is not beneath everyone. We do though find out that the film was shot on the cheap in South Africa and it is also clear to see that the white Americans and white South Africans all had fun making this film. The animal handlers tell us how to train animals for films and the amount of time it takes. The say that the strictest animal handling regulations were adhered to. However, we also see the handlers saying how attached they got to the animals and how hard it was to be separated from the animals after shooting had finished, as they had grown up with them and lived with them for such a long period of time. So the animals it seemed were orphaned but animals don’t have feelings right?
5. ADDITIONAL SCENES (2 mins 30 secs)
Hit or miss, take it or leave it. Like the film, you’ll like these.
6. BUZZ AND SCUZZ’S FLYIN FIASCO
This is an interactive game. Not exactly challenging but one for the kids. I only got a silver cup because I made a mistake, so I don’t know if there is a special extra you get when you get gold. One thing for sure, it is pretty tedious. I actually spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what the hell to do. But I am just a stupid adult, maybe kids are clever enough to figure this stuff out on their own. It comes in 2 levels, pro or rookie. You are racing stripes and you just have to press the DVD buttons in the same order as the flies tell you to.
7. INTERACTIVE COMIC BOOK (6mins 30 secs)
This provides you with the story before the film began. It apparently tells you how Stripes came to be abandoned. However, as I was very uninterested and had just put myself through the ordeal of the directors commentary I couldn’t be bothered with this shit. However, it has a commentary that reads out the speech bubbles (if you select the option) and it is set to music from the film. Good luck.
8. THE MUSIC OF RACING STRIPES WITH STING AND BRYAN ADAMS (4 mins)
Sting informs us that he likes songs with a narrative, which is clear from the song he did at the end of LEON, but come on Sting doing a song for this, he is having a laugh. Bryan Adams tells us it is fun to write songs for films as you can write outside of yourself, or as he puts it exactly, he has written a song about “the spirit of the zebra and what he can achieve”. Well done, spend your money wisely!
In the set up menu and separate from the other extras above, you can find a directors commentary.
DIRECTORS COMMENTARY
I had just come of the back of watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2 excellent commentaries on the region 1 version of HARD EIGHT, his first film, so when confronted with this one by Frederik Du Chau it was a) hard to take seriously and b) hard to get to the end of. Persevere though as I did, it made me angry and frustrated. He outlines his history in animation and how you have to “lay out the colours for character arcs”, highlighting that he really did put a lot of effort into the making of this film. It seems Hollywood is now giving any old wannabee the chance to make films, that is wanabees without any talent for the job what so ever. He is very self assured and literate enough to explain that his film is a good one. It reminded me of the classic stories or men being stabbed in the back when they believe they are in the prime of their lives. How can he seriously compare Sergio Leone to this. This man really needs to surround himself with some real people and go back to his day job. In days when Richard Stanley and Victor Erice can’t even find funding for films, you gotta hold your hands up and start asking who is controlling this stuff. The suits are winning unfortunately and they have retaken our favourite entertainment again. This commentary is delusional, back slapping and to be honest the things he says have a habit of morphing into something else. They seem to be saying “don’t watch this, press stop now, you have watched the film, that was painful enough, don’t torture yourself anymore. Live life, have fun”. It was like something out of THEY LIVE.
The picture quality though is excellent as we would expect from one of the top company’s. The animation is all crisp and the lines around the animation are all but invisible. The sound is also clear, even though the sound design is not exactly Walter Murch or Randy Thom at their best, it is definitely of a high quality. Subtitles come in English and English for the Hard of Hearing, but to be honest if you are hard of hearing for this film it might be a blessing. Leave the subtitles off and try and create your own story. It will be more satisfying!
All in all, this film struggles to pitch itself at the right audience. It is clearly a kid’s film but it has adult jokes, even though they are not adult enough to worthy yourself with a viewing. It is definitely one to let the kids watch alone whilst you nip upstairs and practice some barnyard techniques with your partner. The DVD is adequately put together and for kids I am sure they will get some fun out of it.
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