Dreamworks #6: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron - 7.6/10 

One of the main differences between watching the Dreamworks films and the Disney ones is, as I’ve said, that all of the former have been released in my lifetime. The very first, Antz, came out when I was already a teenager and as such, I’ve already seen most of them and what’s more, I don’t really have any “childhood” memories of any of them. That’s what makes a film like Spirit so interesting to me; I had never seen it before and didn’t really have any idea what to expect.

My favorite thing about this movie is easy to single out: the animals don’t talk. I mean seriously, that was the coolest freaking thing. It’s what I wish Disney had done with Dinosaur. A movie with animal characters that really behaved like animals! Well, mostly. The effect was somewhat muted by having Matt Damon narrate from the first-person perspective of the horse (I think a third-person narration would have been more natural), and the horses did at times exhibit humanlike behavior and facial expressions. The latter is easiest to forgive, because I'm going to assume that A.) most viewers are humans, and B.) most human viewers are not adept at interpreting animal emotions.

The animation was pretty great – a nice blend of traditional and CGI techniques that considering the technology at the time was pretty impressive. I wasn’t as fond of the musical track. They were trying for the same concept as Disney’s Tarzan and Brother Bear, where Phil Collins sings about what’s going on and how the characters feel about it. They didn’t use Phil Collins of course, but the idea was the same. Not really sure how well they pulled it off. The songs fit and all, but none of them really caught my ear or struck a chord or anything. A bit more like Brother Bear than Tarzan in that sense.

As for the story itself? Eh, it was all right. Pretty basic, really. Wild horse is captured, refuses to be tamed, escapes, repeat, repeat. The friendship he strikes up with the young Lakota man/boy was nice and handled well, but there wasn’t anything particularly complex going on. Just a nice, simple story told from the heart. Overall I enjoyed the film and would say it’s worth a watch if you haven’t seen it, but it’s not one I’d put on my repeated viewings list.