Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Michael

Never saw this one on release. It just didn't look very interesting and I've avoided it for many years not ever really knowing what it was about other than some horses. Due to a series of fun dares and egging on I ended up watching it for the first time tonight. Probably could have done without that, but now I know.

There were some pretty visuals. A lot of 3D rendered as 2D. Some great 2D animation on the horses. Although they don't speak they are pretty anthropomorphic. And Matt Damon's internal narration of the title character often leave you at a loss as to how much the horse actually understands as to what is going on with the humans.

For a while there I wasn't sure if there were ever going to be humans. Or even conflict of any kind. The opening is just a bunch of horses having a good time in a long since destroyed wilderness.

That's part of the problem here. Even more so than the Ice Age films no matter what happy resolution the film came to we all know what happened to the west, to the indians, to the country. It leaves a sour note hanging over the whole proceedings, no matter how hard they try to keep everything happy, uplifting and inspirational.

There's no singing from the characters, just some... questionable... Brian Adams songs plastered throughout. Oh man they made me cringe.

All in all, I didn't like it and I can see why it didn't do well. Technically it's top of the line. But creatively it's just flaccid and rather ill-advised.