I've been watching a lot of kids films because it's hard to find time to put on an R rated film with a 2 year old running round the house. She sleeps a lot less than other kids her age, so that doesn't help.
Even though some of her favourite TV shows turn my brain to jelly, it's been nice to have a break from cinematic sex and violence.
You're never too old to have a chuckle at a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Of course, weed helps in that department.
I went to the cinema to see Spirit: Untamed the other day. It was my daughter's first cinema experience. She brought one of the Spirit toys I got her on eBay. When Spirit appeared for the first time, she jumped up and yelled, "It's Spirit!" How much I enjoyed the film is unquestionably influenced by seeing her witness the magic of cinema for the first time.
We are fans. We've seen the original film and all the episodes of all the (many) TV spin-offs... but this was a bit different.
The basically threw the original film Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron out when they made the TV shows, which suits me because I thought it was a bit artsy and pretentious... They don't work together as a package.
Spirit: Untamed is much closer to the TV show, but they recast and redesigned every character. Jake Gyllenhaal sweeps in and replaces Nolan North as Jim.
I wonder, do kids care about Jake Gyllenhaal? Are parents significantly more likely to take their kids to a film because it has Donnie Darko in it?
The original Jim was better. If I was Nolan North, I'd be
pissed.
I don't think Walton Goggins added anything either, and I usually can't get enough of him. Julianne Moore replaced another relatively unknown actress. It goes on and on.
The main character - Lucky Prescott - is voiced by Dora from the live-action Dora the Explorer film (which I thought was a surprisingly good film but I was super baked so I'm sceptical of myself).
Most of the characters are close enough to their original versions.
Abigail is where they fucked up. They took a character that absolutely was not broken in any way and fixed her. In doing so, they lost a lot of the magic. She should have looked and acted exactly like she did in the original.
I can confidently say that I would have directed this film better.
Whoever was paid to do this doesn't care about the franchise.
6/10 (Spirit deserves better.)