In 2002, DreamWorks released ‘Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron’, an epic tale that tells the story of a wild horse who grows into a stallion, captured by wranglers, and must find a way to free himself to return to his herd. In 2017, a spinoff TV series titled ‘Spirit Riding Free’ was made available as a Netflix Original with season 9 scheduled to release in 2021. Both the original movie and Netflix series have been well received by fans and critics, as well as the majority of DreamWorks’ other hit films including Shrek, Road to The Road to El Dorado, and How to Train Your Dragon, and this sets the expectations high for DreamWorks’ latest project, ‘Spirit Untamed’.

Set during the 1890s, ‘Spirit Untamed’ is a movie adaptation of the Netflix series that tells the story of Lucky Prescott (voiced by Isabela Merced), a young girl and daughter of a deceased famous horse rider, moving from the city to a small frontier town with her aunt, Cora Prescott (Julianne Moore) to live with her father and Cora’s brother, Jim Prescott (Jake Gyllenhaal). At first, Lucky is very reluctant to leave the city life behind but during her train ride, she makes eye contact with a wild Kiger Mustang running alongside the moving train and is captivated by its beauty. After arriving in town and adjusting to her new surroundings, she witnesses that same horse in a paddock with a wrangler named Hendricks (Walton Goggins) attempting to tame him, but he is never successful and constantly mistreats him.

She decides to try and approach the untamed horse, feeling there is a connection between them. She becomes intrigued by the horse’s characteristics, seeing a lot of herself in him and saying he’s got a lot of “Spirit,” which becomes his name. While taking advice from the two more experienced riders her age, Pru and Abigail (voiced by Marsai Martin and Mckenna Grace respectively), Lucky and Spirit’s bond grows stronger, allowing her to mount and ride the horse even with her lack of experience, which amazes everyone around her. However, Hendricks, who watches from a distance, has other more devious plans for Spirit.

Being a movie adaptation, it, unfortunately, doesn’t quite have the same spirit when comparing it to the successful TV series. The story does mainly focus on Lucky and Spirit and the lengths they’ll go to save their loved ones, but there are moments where the supporting characters also overcome certain obstacles and have meaningful bonding moments together, however, those moments somehow don’t feel as special as they could’ve been and come off more as an afterthought. Unlike the original movie and Netflix series, the character development is lacking a little in the latest entry of the franchise. The potential was definitely there, but the opportunities were missed.

The 3D animation and overall presentations are bright, vibrant, and colourful, perfectly suiting the film’s setting. Although it is hard to not compare it to the art style of DreamWorks’ other big franchises, which wowed audiences with its breathtaking visuals. The original 2002 movie was 2D hand-drawn animation and is actually the best-looking movie of the Spirit franchise. As long as audiences aren’t comparing it to the other animated movies by DreamWorks, ‘Spirit Untamed’ on its own is still an impressive-looking movie.

Spirit Untamed has plenty of enjoyable moments for children and their families to enjoy. Each voice actor brings a lot of charm to their characters, and seeing some characters with different ethnicities living in the small town out in the countryside gives it a nice multicultural touch, which is accurate to that time period.

The original movie focuses more on Spirit (unrelated to Spirit in the latest movie), while the 2021 movie puts more focus on the main human character, Lucky. This isn’t really a bad thing, as Lucky does have an interesting story to tell but as mentioned above, it just doesn’t quite deliver in the same way the Netflix series did. It could’ve been a fantastic way to gain the audiences’ interest and introduce them to ‘Spirit Riding Free’, which is the more complete version of the same story if they weren’t already aware of it.

While it’s unlikely ‘Spirit Untamed’ will be as memorable as the other big titles DreamWorks has to offer, it’s still overall an enjoyable movie on its own perfect for the family.

Written by: Sammy Hanson