SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMMARRON Review

The motion picture medium was essentially created to capture the grace and beauty of a Horse. It was a bet. Did all four hooves ever leave the ground at the same time when a horse galloped? That question and the subsequent invention to capture the answer definitively led to the invention of the motion picture camera.

There is something otherworldly about horses, they have grace and size and stamina… But if you’ve ever felt a horse nuzzle up against your chest while feeding it alfalfa… you’ll also see tenderness and beauty and soul. Horses have so much personality and warmth, and riding them is something else altogether.

Saturday morning I had to get up at 8am, for those that don’t know me well, that’s usually when I go to sleep, so for me to be attentive at this 10am screening, I literally had to change my whole sleep schedule around, but due to the server problems brought on by STAR WARS web traffic… I can only update in the pre-dawn hours… So… I only got about 4 hours sleep before waking up to drive all the way to far south Austin with Father Geek to see Dreamworks’ latest feature 2D animated film.

I was grumpy. I wanted sleep. Waking up for a goofy horsey movie wasn’t what I wanted. As we arrived at the theater, there were tons of people waiting to get in… And I figured… COOL, there’ll be a big audience of parents and children. WRONG, they were all here to see STAR WARS EPISODE 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES… I was here to see SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMMARRON.

Our theater was nearly empty. It was me, Father Geek, Patch and about 22 families. I’d say the theater was about 72.7% empty. Not exactly sure how they passed out tickets, if they passed out tickets, but nobody was here. Which was sad, because this is a great little film.

For as long as I can remember fans of animation have wanted a feature length animated film with animals that didn’t talk. That told the story naturally through movement and their natural sounds. The first 15 minutes of Disney’s DINOSAURS gave us this before completely dropping the ball. Here, they tell a story about a wild stallion, no air guitar please, that we know as the title character of SPIRIT though nobody ever calls him that. It is simply implied. Sparingly in the film we hear Spirit’s thoughts which narrate the tale as spoken by Matt Damon. I understand completely why they did this, for youngsters, they need the narration to feel and know what is going on, however some adults may wish that it not be included. For this reason I highly recommend on the DVD to have a NARRATION free feature, as the animation was so well done, as to render it completely useless. However, it is not bad. Simply extraneous, it neither adds nor detracts for me.

My only other negative with the film is the title. I wish it were called… simply… SPIRIT. Calling it SPIRIT: STALLION OF THE CIMMARRON sounds like some cheesy straight to video crap animated flick. However, this is anything but that.

SPIRIT is an intensely emotional film embodying everything about the word Spirit. In fact the film deals with 3 spirits. The Horse, the Indian and the Colonel. Together they represent to me the three spirits of the West.

The Horse – Spirit - In perhaps the greatest story about the capturing and enslaving of a free spirit as I’ve ever seen in cinema history… centers around a Stallion that is the leader of his herd of wild horses. The opening scenes of his birth, his raising and his love to sprint free as fast as his body can carry him is a cinema of joy. That joy of controlling your own direction, your own life… To be free to simply roam with no direction but your own. To some, this opening may feel a tad fluffy, but it is absolutely necessary to stress the life of this horse prior to the entrance of man.

When Man first tosses a rope about his neck, the long trek to the fort, the shearing, the branding, the shoeing and of course the breaking. Feeling these events through the eyes of this proud and noble beast are brutal. We see his spirit wane through the lack of food and water, beating down his energy to resist. What makes him hold it together? Freedom, this isn’t spoken, you simply can tell when he looks up at the sky, pulls at his rope, makes another lunge. That desire and will to be free. To be unencumbered by the shackles of man. Better than AMISTAD or any film dealing with slavery, here you feel the angst and the horror of being taken and domesticated for human subjugation. The results are BRUTAL.

Watching this horse, his movements, his intentions, the look in his eyes… I found myself falling more and more in love with this beast and at no time did I feel that I wasn’t watching a horse. In fact I felt I was watching a kindred spirit longing to be free. I got way caught up emotionally with this film. So much so that at one point, I literally muttered, “mudderfrucker,” as something looked like it was gonna happen on screen. I literally had balled up my fist like I was gonna hit an animated character for doing something, at this point Patch literally started to laugh at me because I was caught getting so caught up that I was willing to physically defend an animated character.

This movie has laughs, tears and happiness, but it also elicited anger, and I couldn’t believe that. For that split second, I was motivated to an outburst and a physical bit of involvement. That is not natural. That doesn’t happen ever. I’m a very controlled person physically. Never get in fights, never ball up a fist, always very controlled. I get happy and sad and serious. I tend to bottle up anger pretty well and just turn it to something else. For a movie to put me through the entire gamut of emotions… that’s amazing. All of this created around the amazing involvement that animator James Baxter created for this lead character. Astonishing character animation.

Indian – Little Creek - voiced by Daniel Studi (son of Wes Studi) and animated by Pres Romanillos. This character was just wonderful. Played not as the stiff proud mystical Indian of old, but rather as a free spirit that loves to be free himself. We see his character being brought into the fort, like Spirit, and tied to a hitching post and subjugated like Spirit. Spirit feels there is something different about this two legged creature from the others. Now, I was fearful that this film was going to turn into one of those beautiful co-existing spirit of the Indian and animals vs. The Evil White Man flicks. In fact, I just kinda knew this was the direction they were headed in. Now Daniel Studi plays this as a young vital man. Someone with a sense of adventure and duty.

Cavalry Colonel – voiced by James Cromwell – and I’m not real sure who animated him, didn’t catch it in the credits, nor could I find it on the official site. Great job whoever you are. (HARRY NOTE: Thanks to many enthusiastic Dreamworks Animators that wanted the record set, I can report that this wonderful work is by none other than Fabio Lignini, who also animated Goldblum's Aaron in PRINCE OF EGYPT - another great piece of work!) Very subtle face animation, specifically great eye work here. Also Cromwell did a great job not sounding like James Cromwell, but rather imbuing this character with an indominatible spirit of the man believing in Manifest Destiny. Seizing the opportunity to conquer the West. He’s a man governed by his emotions, and his moment of truth is truly great. Not a black and white character, but one drawn in shades of grey in a Technicolor film.

Together, this trio really pack a lot of emotion and drama into this story. Specifically Little Creek and Spirit. The bond is a bond of sentient beings and not between a man and a magical talking horse… but a horse that has more character than that pig on Green Acres.

Also in this film is a romance between Spirit and Little Creek’s mare. How this develops is just… WONDERFUL. Absolutely great. Can not comment enough on how well handled this was. Little Creek realizes that Spirit must understand that there is no threat to him by being with the ‘two legs’ so he creates a lasso made of two hoops and a great deal of rope in-between. He puts one end around Spirit and the other around his mare and sets them loose. Now horses do not speak to each other in a common language, but understand by actions and body language and facial movements. PURE ANIMATION. The following sequence, which I will call The Seduction of Spirit is beautiful. Perhaps the best bound romance since Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll’s in THE 39 STEPS. And the Hans Zimmer tango he creates for the scene is a masterstroke. Literally took my breath away.

That brings me to the music… I was terrified of the Bryan Adams music binding this film together, as Bryan is one of those great supermarket musicians and easy listening non-risk taking hummable musicians. I suppose if I were to listen to this music separate from the images, I would turn the channel, but the images that the songs are tied to makes the songs significant. Gives them meaning that they would otherwise be judged as lacking. This is by no means great music, but during the last song, a whole row of kids were making lasso moves above their heads and bouncing in their seats… of course… I am in Texas… but having said that, I’m in Austin, where generally lasso moves above your head is most likely to get you shunned for life. We’re far more into the blues and alternative music here.

Finally I applaud the work done by the co-directors here. Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook did a fantastic job of telling a story through movements and gestures naturalistically. This is literally one of the best works of physical animation that I have ever seen. Especially the work on the title character. If you have kids, check this out. If you are a fan of animation, check this out. And lastly if you want to score points with the woman in your life, check this out… It is a good date movie. Really it is.

God willing, this movie will perform well, as 2D animation is in great need for great success, too often the for of CG movies have been out-shining the 2D world, but ultimately what is most important about any story isn’t the form, but what it has to say. This is a movie with strong characters telling a strong story in the best form needed to tell the story. I can’t wait to see what Dreamworks has in store for us next!