Official Synopsis
Join Spirit, a wild young mustang, as he sets out on an action-packed quest against impossible odds to regain his freedom and save his homeland. In his courageous and thrilling journey across the majestic wilderness of the American frontier, Spirit forms a remarkable friendship with a young Lakota brave, outwits a relentless squadron of soldiers, and falls for a beautiful paint mare named Rain.
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The story of Spirit starts out solid. You have a young mustang born into a wild and free world, only to find himself scooped up and stolen away from his people by an invading army from the east (American soldiers). Resisting being tamed and determined to roam wild, Spirit finds his way out of the army’s arms and into the arms of a group of Native Americans, including a young brave named Lakota.
Thinking his days of entrapment are behind him, and finally trusting his current situation, Spirit finds a place among the Native American tribe and finds his heart stolen away by a horse named Rain. Living fun and free, his comfort is soon dashed when the American army finds the tribe, nearly wipes them out, almost kills Rain, while seeking revenge on Lakota and Spirit.
From that point on, the story gets a bit dull. Spirit is taken far away by some ranchers and ends up among other horses of his type helping to move some railroad equipment to connect Utah to the west. Spirit sabotages the plans of the ranchers and soon finds himself back with Lakota and on the run again.
This portion of the story really does take a left turn from excitement and strays right into some confusion. I understand that his comfort has to be disrupted, because you can’t end the film that quickly, but I don’t get the story’s odd shift to the railroad. I do comprehend that this was another piece of the west that had to be established to get the country moving from coast to coast and it makes sense within the context of the time period, but it’s such an unpredictable movement in plot points that by the end the story is suddenly struggling to find some solid connection back on its own path. When you watch the film, you’ll see what I mean.
On top of this, the railroad scenes aren’t anything exciting. The way that Spirit acts should prompt the railroad folk to go nuts on the horse, but they don’t. The scene just isn’t very connective to the rest of the story or thought out particularly well. Of course, this is a kid’s film. It doesn’t necessarily have to be built by Academy Award winning writers or directors. Still, there are better Dreamworks and Disney animated films out there with more coherent and connective plot points.
Story aside, the animation is absolutely gorgeous. While there is some obvious mix of computer objects within the visuals (the train for example), the overall look and feel to the film is pretty spectacular. The open environments, the rolling green hills of grass and the enormous canyon scene towards the end really do make you wish more animated films were hand drawn. More hand drawn features would bode well for a world of computer driven animated studios. They do look far and wide better than any computer generated graphics. Sorry, Pixar, I’m just saying.
At the end of the day, Spirit may not fulfill your need for great storytelling, but it sure will be a visual masterpiece that will make your eyes quite happy.
Which brings me to my next part of this review, the Blu-ray version of the film. Flawless, gorgeous and a treat for your eyes. Every single color in this film looks spectacular. Every single frame of animation is gorgeous, clean and crisp. It’s quite the visual spectacle to be hold. It’s certainly an HD transfer that is up there with the likes of Disney movies on Blu-ray. If you liked this film on DVD, then you need it on Blu-ray to see how good it looks.
The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, though the music is certainly forgettable (sorry).
As for the special features, here’s what you should expect:
– Filmmaker’s Commentary
– Learn to Draw Spirit with James Baxter
– Animating Spirit
– The Songs of Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron
– Storyboards
– International Star Talent
– DWKids
For a film of this nature, it has quite a bit of punch to the special features section. Not bad for a Blu-ray release.