Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron Review
by David N. Butterworth (dnb AT dca DOT net)June 27th, 2002
SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMARRON
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2002 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
There’s something about horses--even animated ones--galloping across the open plains that generates a lump in the throat, and the producers of “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” milk that emotional moment for all its worth. In this animated family feature there are countless scenes of horses dashing through
fields, crashing through forests, and galloping through dusty, coldwater canyons.
“Spirit” is a story of the Old West told, perhaps for the first time, from
the vantage point of a buckskin mustang with an unbreakable spirit. The feisty
protagonist of this serious-minded fable speaks to us in a voiceover provided by Matt Damon (you wouldn’t know it if you didn’t check ahead of time) and this
is one of the film’s major strengths, since the wild horses in the film don’t do a Disney on us and talk, sing, or dance (“Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is a DreamWorks SKG production). The primary benefit of this is that the animators
are forced to make their steeds communicate like real horses, focusing more closely on eye movements, subtle flicks of the head and tail, and broader gestures
which genuinely bring their charges to life.
We follow Spirit’s journey from birth, to capture by Union soldiers, to an
ensuing battle of wills between the headstrong stallion and the cavalry colonel
bent on breaking him (voiced by “Babe”’s James Cromwell; again you wouldn’t
know it), to his escape with Little Creek, a captured Lakota Sioux, who introduces
Spirit to his mare, a paint called Rain; capture again; and eventual freedom/return
to his family.
This fine family film hits all the emotional buttons: goofy foals who’d rather play than sleep are given Spirit’s evil eye; captured mustangs hauling a train over a mountain break free of their burden, which crashes back down into the encampment causing a wildfire; a sensual, eagle’s eye view opening sequence
that swoops and soars among the majestic buttes and bluffs of Monument Valley; Rain’s close encounter with a cavalryman’s bullet; Little Creek and Spirit at play in the fields surrounding the Colorado basin.
However, for every high point that genuinely speaks to us, hot on its heels
is a musical moment that speaks down to us, courtesy rocker Bryan Adams. Adams,
who’s crooned a handful of movie ballads in his day, digs deep into his Big Bag of Musical Clichés and offers up some boneheaded lyrics that drag down this
otherwise well-paced picture ("get off my back" is the oft-heard refrain during
the sequence in which soldiers take turns at breaking the majestic stallion, for example). They all sound like flag-waving anthems better suited to an end credits sequence.
As with many animated features, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” is inconsistently
drawn and computer generated. Most of the backgrounds are exquisite, yet the horses themselves come across as too angular, with an over abundance of rough edges. Directors Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook are also guilty of doing a Brian De Palma more than once in the film, i.e., circling their equine heroes in a dizzying, spiraling camera moment. These minor grievances do not, however, detract from the overall feel of the film--an exciting horse-drawn western with
a significant subtext that both kids and their parents can enjoy.
--
David N. Butterworth
[email protected]
Got beef? Visit "La Movie Boeuf"
online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
More on 'Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
