AC12: Random Movie Review - Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Its often that I see a number of films with animals behaving in a anthropomorphic way and most of them are either very good or very bad. But it can be rare to find a film where the animals are behaving in their normal way and apart from the normal sounds, don't talk like we do. So here we are with that kind of film. It serves as DreamWorks Animation's seventh film as well as one of their last traditionally 2D animated films before going all 3D (though that kind of animation has returned through their Netflix shows). So let's have a look at it:

Set in the 19th century in the American Wild West, our titular Kiger Mustang horse Spirit (whose thoughts are voiced by Jason Bourne himself, Matt Damon) is born to a herd of horses. After many years, Spirit becomes a stallion and assumes the role of leader for his herd and must keep his herd safe from all manners of evil and dangers in the world. Despite being a courageous leader, Spirit's curiosity soon takes the better of him as he stumbles across a group of horse stranglers who upon seeing him, want to capture him for their own doings. In the midst of the Indian Wars, Spirit proves to be quite a stubborn horse but soon enough goes on a journey of love and adventure not knowing if he will ever see his herd again.

The film is a visual spectacle and has a lot of great things going for it. Though for some of us, it may be too predictable or too politically correct (at least back when it first came out). But otherwise, its a good film that shows animators that you can make a good animal film without the need for the animals to act or speak like us. Plus the light amount of human characters gives the film a bit more variety than just horses which can be seen as good too. 8/10