One of the complaints leveled against the recent smash hit The Super Mario Bros. Movie was that it didn’t demand enough of the young audience, that it was satisfied being bright, colorful, and filled with references about which gamers could use that “Rick Dalton sees himself on TV” GIF.
The counterargument is that the reason it’s grossed $1.2 billion is that it was OK being an undemanding kids film, one that didn’t need to scatter a few adult-friendly references through the script just to keep the grownups engaged. Maybe that’s a lesson that Rally Road Racers could have learned, and then maybe we would be spared a sudden re-creation of the video for “Take on Me” by A-ha. True, it looks cool, and it’s kind of thematically relevant, but it also throws on the handbrake for a fun vroom-vroom comedy adventure.
The story is basically a furry, simplified version of Disney’s Hercules: A hero-in-waiting (Yang as Zhi the slow loris) comes under the tutelage of a horned and goat-legged Yiddish trainer (Simmons having a Borscht Belt blast as Gnash the goat mechanic) and fulfills his destiny even as his merciless yet hilarious nemesis (Cleese as the unsubtly named frog Archie Vainglorious) uses a femme fatale (Shelby, another slow loris, played by Bennet) to distract him. The difference is that rather than fighting monsters in ancient Greece, Zhi needs to win a four-day rally along China’s old Silk Road. Which should be impossible, because he’s a slow loris. Slow. Get it?
It may be a simple joke, but in those happy moments in which writer/director Venokur remembers his target audience, Rally Road Racers is quite delightful. It’s not that the animated movie isn’t fun for older audiences: It’s that it’s more fun when it’s relaxed and gentle, without dropping in nods and winks. There’re no scenes of explicit danger, but instead obstacles for Zhi to overcome as he tries to rescue his village from demolition by Archie’s wrecking balls.
Hopefully, distributors Viva Pictures realize that. The kid-friendly distributor has felt a little bit like animation’s answer to mockbuster specialists Ambient Entertainment (as shown by Hotel Transylvania knockoff Monster Family 2): But having started the year handling the U.S. release of Terry Pratchett adaptation The Amazing Maurice, Rally Road Racers feels like another step in the right direction. Venokur’s candy-colored world and wild menageries of animal drivers, most especially Shale and MacDonald as expectant parent seahorses, pop out of the primary-colored backgrounds with glee and charm. And even if the route to Zhi and Shelby’s first kiss and Archie’s inevitable defeat is pretty linear, it’s a diverting joy ride for the littles. Maybe next time, just worry less about cramming the adults in this kiddie car.
This article appears in Guide to Summer.
