Well, at least the animals don't
talk. Not on-camera, anyway. "Sometimes, a horse has gotta do
what a horse has gotta do," Matt Damon says on the soundtrack
during Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, as the film's lead
character, a brown mustang stallion, throws one mean ol' cavalry
soldier after another off his back while they try to break him. Even
the mean ol' squinty-eyed colonel of the fort where this is taking
place fails to do so, and he's a cuss, even after the stallion bites
his riding crop in half. Our hero fares better with the Lakota tribe
next door, though: they treat him humanely, give him apples to eat,
and the horse returns their consideration in turn.
The movie is briskly paced, and at times lovingly rendered in a combination of conventional and computer-generated animation. It is also clunkingly inspirational -- the whole story is about the stallion doggedly determined to get back "home" to the herd from whence he sprung, and, at the end, how he and his Lakota friend, a young brave named Little Creek, win their "freedom forever". At least in this little soap bubble of a story. (History chronicles that the opposite was true, that the native Western wilderness would be run over by the "manifest destiny" movement, along with, shamefully, the native American tribes.)
While the filmmakers take the admirable tact of having the animals on-screen communicate non-verbally, their actions and reactions are often decidedly anthropomorphic, and the Bryan Adams songs that are incorporated into Hans Zimmer's orchestral score are as achingly uplifting as a hatpin being suddenly jabbed into your thigh. (Sample lyric: "Here I am,/This is me...." Well, who were you expecting, someone else? responded I.)