Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown

Typically cute, charming - if not inspired - Peanuts feature film sees the gang go to summer camp and participate in a sometimes hazardous raft race. Charlie Brown (voice of Duncan Watson) is immediately targeted by a swaggering trio of bullies who won the race the past two years, but seemingly can't succeed without cheating.

You can never really go wrong with Charles M. Schulz and his characters. There are enough pleasant and funny moments here to make "Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown" quite agreeable. Now, not all of the humor quite worked for this viewer - the running gag about the girls always voting on things wears thin - but the traditional hand drawn animation is engaging, the subplot about Snoopy and Woodstock getting separated is rather touching, and it's nice to see Charlie Brown actually stand up for himself and, in general, be a stronger character than usual.

One thing you definitely miss is the jazz style music that Vince Guaraldi would have provided, but his untimely death put the kibosh on that approach. The music by a man named Ed Bogas is a little more traditional, and it's not quite the same. There are some very annoying songs that pop up, but they're over appreciably quickly.

A straightforward story (with an endearing ending), a theme of people working together for the common good, decent laughs and thrills, and a funny gag involving Charlie Brown having to hitch a ride with Snoopy on the latters' motorcycle all help to make this nice entertainment for Peanuts fans.

Seven out of 10.