Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown was the third feature film that starred the Peanuts gang. In this one, the gang goes off to summer camp, where they instantly run into trouble with a trio of ruthless bullies that continuously dominate the camp competitions with the dirtiest tricks in the book. As you may have guessed, the gang gets their rears handed to them early, and it all comes down to a river race that is the basis for the entire plot.
The first problem in the movie is that the bullies are written as the biggest one- dimensional tools on Earth. They have no other character outside the cocky jerks that say the same "We're #1!" trash talk in all their dialogue. I should also mention that they have no name for their gang. They don't even have names for themselves. Each bully character is literally credited as "Bully". That's how big of one-dimensional antagonists that we're dealing with. Another thing that bugged me in the writing was the girls. They form a democracy and take votes on everything. I understand that the Peanuts franchise has emphasized feminism several times with its characters and story lines, and this movie is trying to show that girls can be independent. But this democracy stuff?????? One of their votes was to decide on letting the girls stay inside the cabin for the night or having the boys sleep outside the cabin, which they found first on their own, and they don't even let the boys vote. That is something I'd expect Republicans to do.
So the writing is not as strong as the Peanuts' best work, based on those two things, as well as the repetition in dialogue and editing. But the rest of the stuff in there does hold up from my memories of seeing it as a kid. It still has a lot of plot structure, clever comedy, entertaining moments, neat animation, and valuable lessons that the Peanuts franchise is always best at.
The first problem in the movie is that the bullies are written as the biggest one- dimensional tools on Earth. They have no other character outside the cocky jerks that say the same "We're #1!" trash talk in all their dialogue. I should also mention that they have no name for their gang. They don't even have names for themselves. Each bully character is literally credited as "Bully". That's how big of one-dimensional antagonists that we're dealing with. Another thing that bugged me in the writing was the girls. They form a democracy and take votes on everything. I understand that the Peanuts franchise has emphasized feminism several times with its characters and story lines, and this movie is trying to show that girls can be independent. But this democracy stuff?????? One of their votes was to decide on letting the girls stay inside the cabin for the night or having the boys sleep outside the cabin, which they found first on their own, and they don't even let the boys vote. That is something I'd expect Republicans to do.
So the writing is not as strong as the Peanuts' best work, based on those two things, as well as the repetition in dialogue and editing. But the rest of the stuff in there does hold up from my memories of seeing it as a kid. It still has a lot of plot structure, clever comedy, entertaining moments, neat animation, and valuable lessons that the Peanuts franchise is always best at.