BEFORE: Sticking with the horse theme, this is another film told more or less (I think) from the P.O.V. of a horse. Linking from "War Horse", David Thewlis is also in the soon-to-be-released Terry Gilliam film "The Zero Theorem" with Matt Damon.
THE PLOT: As a wild stallion travels across the frontiers of the Old West, he befriends a young human and finds true love with a mare.
AFTER: This was an OK animated film, but there just sort of wasn't anything super special about it. The story was pretty basic, with the horse being caught by U.S. cavalry men and they attempted to train him (similar to Joey being enlisted into World War I last night), but here the result was the same, again and again - horse gets caught, horse escapes. So really it just became a simple chase sequence after a while.
Spirit then gets put to work for the railroad, dragging a heavy locomotive uphill. But this didn't really make sense, because the most efficient way to move a train engine would be to build a set of rails, and then move it to where it needs to be. Why would the railroad company need the engine to arrive someplace before the tracks? Once again, Spirit breaks free and runs away - is this sending the right message to kids, that they should run away from all difficult siutations?
It is innovative to tell a story from the horse's point of view, but then having him express his thoughts to the audience in English didn't really make sense to me either. I imagine that the filmmakers meant to tell the story purely through images and horse noises, and then realized that people weren't picking up on all the aspects of the story, so the voiceover was added.
I've got some more animated films set for Christmas, and then I'll hit the animal-based ones hard again in the New Year.
Also starring the voices of James Cromwell (last seen in "Secretariat"), Daniel Studi, Charles Napier (last seen in "Miami Blues"), Michael Horse.
RATING: 5 out of 10 teepees
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