Rating: G
Genre:
Children's/Family
Theatrical Release: 05/24/2002(USA)
Release Date: 11/19/2002
SubTitles: English/Espanol/French
Dubbed: English/Espanol/French
Sound: DD5.1/DDS
Run Time: 83 Minutes
Flags: Mild Violence, Suitable for Children
Distributor/Studio: Dreamworks Animated
Screenwriter
John Fusco returns to the
Western themes of his previous films
Young Guns and
Thunderheart with this animated
children's
adventure from
Dreamworks.
Matt Damon supplies the voice of
Spirit, a wild Mustang stallion living free in the Old West of the late 19th century, where he's captured by human horse traders and sold to a cavalry regiment at a frontier outpost. There, a cruel colonel (voice of
James Cromwell) nearly succeeds in breaking the willful horse, but not quite.
Spirit escapes in the company of another captive,
Little Creek (voice of
Daniel Studi), a Native American youth that tries to possess the magnificent animal by more humane means, but
Spirit refuses to bend to human will even when he makes the acquaintance of
Little Creek's beautiful and fiercely loyal mare,
Rain. After he saves
Little Creek's life in an Army raid,
Spirit believes that the gravely injured
Rain has perished after a tumble over a waterfall. Despondent, the horse is captured again by humans, enslaved this time for work in a pack team on the transcontinental railroad. Undaunted by the tragedies that befall him,
Spirit manages to escape for a reunion with
Little Creek,
Rain, and his long-lost brethren. Featuring songs by
rock singer
Bryan Adams,
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron departs from other examples of its genre in that the horse protagonists do not speak or sing; only
Spirit's voice is heard as voice-over narration.
~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
