Rally Road Racers

Zhi dreams all about racing. It is his only life goal. He misses his beloved late mother. He lives with his grandmother who sees him without harmony. Out of the blue, the evil toad racing champ Archie Vainglorious orders the gentle eviction of their home and demolition. He is leveling the last "slow loris" village and creating a swamp resort for toads. In desperation, Zhi challenges him to the upcoming Silk Road Rally which Archie fully expects to win. Zhi is able to recruit goat mechanic Gnash to help.

The general story is relatively simple. It is almost derivative, but I don't want to be mean. It does have some great songs starting with Cake and they even do a big A-Ha sequence. Obviously, this Chinese animated movie has one eye on western culture. Despite that, there are some problems translating the story between the two cultures. Little things do go wrong and stick out like little speed bumps. This is better than most Chinese efforts. It just needs a few more passes.

ADD: A little more reading yields the fact that this is not Chinese animation. Fair enough. It seems to be a hodgepodge of international animators that I've never heard of. Here's the thing. This mixing and mashing of cultures leaves everything a little muddled. It's great to read that somebody spent a couple of days in Shanghai. That should solve everything.

Road Race Rally delivers on the adrenaline-pumping action you'd expect from a movie about high-speed racing. The car sequences are thrilling, with impressive stunts and a sense of speed that keeps you engaged. The film captures the excitement of the race, and if you're in it for the fast cars and close calls, you won't be disappointed. However, the story that ties it all together feels a bit undercooked. The characters are fairly standard, and the plot doesn't offer much beyond the basics-a few predictable twists and a rivalry that never quite sizzles. The pacing also suffers from a few slow patches where the energy dips. "Road Race Rally" is a fun ride for the action, but it's not the most memorable journey. It's worth a watch if you're a fan of the genre, but don't expect much more than some solid automotive thrills.

Before watching Rally Road Racers, I decided to read through some reviews first. I noticed the movie had parental restrictions attached to it, which made me curious. I wanted to see for myself why that was the case before showing it to any younger kids.

As I watched, I couldn't really figure out the reasoning behind the rating. Sure, there are quite a few car crashes, a bit of negativity, and the usual antics of a cartoon villain-but nothing outside the norm for an animated adventure. The "bad" behavior is simply tied to the antagonist being, well, a typical over-the-top villain. The racing scenes and cartoon chaos feel no more extreme than what you'd see in other family films.

Then the movie takes a surprisingly creative turn with the seahorse characters. What I appreciated is that the filmmakers actually stayed true to real biology: the father is the one pregnant, carrying the babies, while the mother does the work, and then the father gives birth to the seahorses. I imagine this may be the moment that sparked some questions or concern among parents. But to me, it came across as clever, accurate, and even educational-male seahorses do carry the babies. The humor surrounding it is light, and it doesn't take away from the story at all.

In fact, I think it adds to the film's creativity. The animation is bright and colorful, the animal characters are fun to follow, and the overall tone is playful. Kids will enjoy the energy and silliness, and adults will likely find a few moments of charm scattered in.

I'm still not sure why the movie received the parental restriction it did. If anything, the car crashes are the most intense element, but that's to be expected in a racing film. Overall, Rally Road Racers is a cute little film that ties its story together well. It's imaginative, humorous in its own way, and perfectly fine for children to enjoy.

I hadn't heard about this 2023 animated movie titled "Rally Road Racers" prior to stumbling upon it by random chance. And thus, I opted to sit down and watch it with my son, whom happen to like most things with fast cars.

The storyline in "Rally Road Racers", as written by Ross Venokur, was pretty straight forward. It was an okay enjoyable enough storyline, given its simplicity. But of course, with it being an animated movie for children, then the storyline didn't really need to be multi-layered or overly elaborate.

The character gallery in "Rally Road Racers" was a fun and colorful one. However, there didn't really strike me to be any particular character that stood out, and I doubt that I will even remember them come next week. But at least they entertained my son well enough.

With "Rally Road Racers" being an animated movie, then having a talented voice acting ensemble is fairly important. And they did have that for this 2023 animated movie, with the likes of J. K. Simmons, Jimmy O. Yang, John Cleese, Lisa Lu and others. SO you were in fairly capable hands here.

Something that really worked in favor of "Rally Road Racers" was the art style and animation. I liked the way they presented the characters and the world around them, lots of nice details and unique things to take in. And the animation was good, smooth and rather dynamic.

Easily watchable for a single viewing, for me as an adult, but "Rally Road Racers" definitely should have some repeated viewing value to it for the younger audience.

My rating of director Ross Venour's 2023 animated movie "Rally Road Racers" lands on a six out of ten stars.

"Silk Rally Road" is, first of all, a sad example of how you can blindly copy other people's successful ideas without adding anything of your own and original. If you are familiar with the packages of popular animated films such as "Zootopia", "Cars", "Planes" and "Turbo", then you can easily recognize almost all the characters and main storylines here. The filmmakers apparently decided to just slightly lengthen and "refine" someone else's content, but they didn't come up with any depth, characters, or a coherent script.

First of all, the absolutely hopelessly dull and monotonous set of characters is striking. All the characters, with the exception of the Chewing goat, are real morons who don't have any logic or attractiveness. The main character of Zhi is a pathetic tracing paper of Dusty Pole from "Planes" and Turbo is a vivid example of a bad character, born as if specifically to annoy. Wise granny Zhi is an exact copy of the character Chet from "Turbo", and Shelby is the embodiment of Ishani from "Planes", only without any zest. The Chewing goat is perhaps the only character who has managed to give at least a little charisma.; he reminds us at the same time of Doc Hudson from "Cars" and Skipper from "Planes" - not original, but a little more lively than the rest.

The main antagonist, Archie , is just a hodgepodge of villains from already famous cartoons: Chico Hicks from Cars, Ripslinger from Airplanes and Guy Gagnier from Turbo. In the official dubbing, Archie's voice changes strangely during the film, which is only distracting and confusing. As for me, it's generally difficult to understand who is the real villain and who is the hero here - especially after the scene where the head of the criminal world threatens the Great that he will send him to the DPRK in case of defeat. In my opinion, at that moment I even empathized with the antagonist - the moral boundaries in this story are so confusing.

Separately, I would like to mention Judy the Donkey, a commentator who looks like she was accidentally hired for this job and was not prepared at all. A very controversial and weak character without any character. Slave frogs are generally a separate artistic level of absurdity and darkness. Their stupidity and senseless actions only make us curse the moment when they decided to add them to the plot.

The weaknesses of the cartoon include anachronism: in one of the scenes, the red flag of the USSR appears on the map, which looks strange and illogical, given that the cartoon was released in 2023 and demonstrates technologies and details that the USSR never had.

Interesting fact: the cartoon was originally supposed to be released back in 2016, but due to the fact that Sony Pictures saw plot intersections with its own "The Angry Birds Movie", the release date was postponed to 2023. And, unfortunately, over the years, the film has not benefited from the transfer.

A welcome moment is the presence of Russian characters - Moose and Beaver, which, although secondary, add some variety. In addition, it is impossible not to mention the impressive graphic design of the cartoon and the energetic soundtrack, which certainly keep the film afloat and add epic drive, despite the poor plot and poorly written characters.

As a result: "Silk Road Rally" is a mediocre copy of classic animated films with extremely poor elaboration of characters and plot. It is difficult to recommend the cartoon to those who expect something fresh and high-quality, but fans of the genre may like the colorful graphics and music. Unfortunately, that's where the positive ends.

Rating: 3/10 - just for the sake of the visual and the soundtrack.