Review: Grand Prix of Europe is a car crash you'll be desperate to look away from

I'm trying to remember the last time I disliked a movie's protagonist as much as I dislike Edda, the gender-bending mouse at the heart of Grand Prix of Europe. Having a hero who's so hard to root for is only the beginning of the issues I had with Viva Kids' latest, which seems like it should've had a pretty smooth race to the finish line. All the pieces are there that should've made this an easy win: a colorful cast of animal characters, a bunch of cool race courses with various hazards, strong motivations pushing our heroes toward greatness. But at every turn, the movie makes bizarre choices, and the result is something of a car crash. And, in this case, one you'll be anxious to look away from.

Using the mascots of a German theme park, and made in part to celebrate said park's fiftieth anniversary, Grand Prix of Europe sets off at a steady clip, getting everything quickly (if not neatly) in place for its story. Edda is a mouse whose father runs a fairground that's falling apart at the seams, and suffering from low attendance. She dreams of being a racecar driver, like her hero Ed, but she knows that her place is at her father's side, helping to keep the fairground afloat. And at the moment, the most pressing issue is the mounting debts her father owes to two shady cats named Mittens and Fluffy. Time is of the essence.

So Edda sets off to the opening celebration of the eponymous race to hand out flyers, and somehow ends up in Ed's car. And then he's chasing her. And while hanging onto the car as she drives like a maniac through the city streets, Ed injures his arm, putting his chance at winning a record-setting fifth Grand Prix in peril. Luckily (?) for him, Ed and Edda look quite a bit alike, so they hatch a scheme where Edda will pose as Ed, race for him through the four-country circuit, and then they can split the prize. Ed gets his historical win, Edda gets money to save her father's fairground, and no one is any the wiser.

I'm sure the filmmakers want you to like and root for Edda, but I cannot list all the ways this little mouse drove me insane. She's so weirdly nonchalant about stealing Ed's car, risking his life, breaking his arm. Then, she he starts training her to take over for him, she is constantly distracted, joking around, not taking it seriously. I'm like...girl, you're trying to save your dad from getting murdered by the feline mafia. Can you stop being a doofus for one second? Then, as she's going through the races and trying to unravel the mysterious series of sabotages happening, she is so careless and messy. At one point, she literally sees the next nefarious trap in a secret lab, with a label saying what it is and what city it will be deployed in, but when she's facing it in that city, she is at a loss for what's going on.

She's so dumb!

And then there's the fact that the actual architect of the races, who's deploying her own set of traps, doesn't seem bothered by these extra things being deployed by god-knows-who, which makes no sense at all.

Basically, this feels like a movie that is going down the narrative path of least resistance, in that nothing needs to make sense, character motivations are an afterthought, and the stakes feel like they don't matter. It comes across as laziness, or lack of care, like something that's being made to celebrate a theme park and entertain children doesn't need to bother being good, so long as it's technically a movie that can make money and pass an hour and a half's time. It's a mind-numbing exercise.

And it's a real shame, because this so easily could've been an entertaining ride. The character designs are cute, with a wide cast of characters from all over the animal kingdom. But these characters don't get much to do beyond slinging some mid-race banter at each other, and occasionally limply delivering some exposition off the track. The animation looks nice -- the cars have a nice shine to them, and some of the more high-octane racing moments feels appropriately dynamic.

Weirdly, the sound doesn't keep pace; it's very tinny and soft. You'd think a movie about racing would have a good booming bass to bring the vrooms to life. But there's no punch there, which definitely dampens the excitement.

Not that there's much excitement to be found here. Beyond looking pretty nice and having a solid core to its story, Grand Prix of Europe feels so half-baked that you'll be hard-pressed to find any reason to cheer. Only the mole fortune teller (who works at the fairground) comes out of this thing unscathed, but her occasional bits of comic relief do little overall to make this wreck of a movie less devastating to behold.