‘Race the Sun’ Follows a Familiar Path

As if to emphasize that there is no paradise on Earth, “Race the Sun” takes the shtick about a dedicated teacher who meets surly but soon-to-be-inspired students, flies it to Hawaii and shows how cultural diversity and fresh plot lines are both endangered species in this country.

The basic losers-win-at-sports movie has, over the past few years, appeared under such titles as “Cool Runnings,” “The Big Green,” “Little Giants,” “Heavyweights” and “The Sandlot.” In “Race the Sun,” a group of underprivileged Hawaiian kids--who refer to themselves as “lolos” for “lowly locals”--are urged by Halle Berry to create a solar car, which they take into international competition in Australia. I can’t think of another solar-car movie, but when the studio claims the film was “inspired by a true story” they might also say “inspired by about a dozen other movies.”

Here, the naive but dedicated instructor is Sandra Beecher (“Beecher the teacher”); her foil is hardened school veteran Frank Machi, the kind of role that might not have been written for Jim Belushi but he’s in it anyway. Sandra is going to give the kids self-respect; Frank thinks it can’t be done. It can.

The kids are the usual carefully structured, multiethnic, pan-attitudinal group whose personalities are both distinct and eminently forgettable. Except for Gilbert (J. Moki Cho), who’s ridiculed for being fat and, of course, is destined to save the day. And amid the stark/glorious landscapes, manufactured crises, forced emotions and unjustified hysteria (there hasn’t been this much cattiness in the Australian outback since “The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”), there’s also the usual class/race conflicts: The kids start out competing against the preppy white kids at home and end up competing against the “uber-villain” Hans (Steve Zahn), who may be “European” but whose purpose is pretty transparent.

One more thing: In complaining about the state of her school, and students, Sandra utters a classic line: “I think if someone had taken a bit more time. . . .” This should cause any teachers in the audience to peel the upholstery off their theater seat, perhaps with their teeth. It’s all so simple in the movies, this education business. Maybe Halle Berry--or director Charles T. Kanganis--should try teaching a high school class sometime.

* MPAA rating: PG, for mild language and a brief incident of teen drinking. Times guidelines: a thoroughly inoffensive movie.

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‘Race the Sun’

Halle Berry: Sandra Beecher

James Belushi: Frank Machi

Bill Hunter: Commissioner Hawkes

Casey Affleck: Daniel Webster

Eliza Dushku: Cindy Johnson

A Morrow/Heus production, released by TriStar Pictures. Director Charles T. Kanganis. Producers Richard Heus, Barry Morrow. Screenplay by Barry Morrow. Cinematographer David Burr. Editor Wendy Greene Bricmont. Costumes Margot Wilson. Music Graeme Revell. Production design Owen Paterson. Art directors Richard Hobbs, Michelle McGahey. Set designer Lea Worth. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.