Spirit Untamed (2021)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
If you and your kids are fans of “Spirit Riding Free” on Netflix, than this reimagining of the series as a feature film will likely excite you and them.
Since this feels like entertainment for the youngest among us, the target audience may find this an easy watch.
One positive is that three female characters become best friends on their own accord. And that should be celebrated.
NO
I kid you not: The animation of Spirit Untamed is akin to watching a lower-budget animated television series or one of those early 2000’s Barbie animated straight-to-video films. As a cinematic experience, it leaves a lot to be desired.
If you have watched “Spirit Riding Free,” are you going to be excited to sit down and watch the television series you have already watched be given a “do-over” with an A-list voiceover cast but the same story?
Wastes a tremendous A-list cast of voiceover talent in giving them little to do and seemingly nothing to be excited about.
OUR REVIEW
Nearly 19 years ago, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron became a surprise animation hit. The DreamWorks Animation production earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature, grossed $120 million worldwide, and even gave audiences both Bryan Adams power-ballads and Matt Damon as the inner voice of Spirit, a kiger mustang captured during the American Frontier Wars desperate to return to his herd.
What a time to be alive!
There was a folksy charm about the film and it looked beautiful on the big screen, even if the story was awkwardly presented at times and Adams’ refrain of “Here I am/This is me” landed with something of a thud.
To those who remember the 2002 film, the arrival of Spirit Untamed in 2021 is something of a curiosity. For those of us unable to keep up with the thousands of new shows and movies Netflix produces each year, this Spirit spin-off is actually not the by-product of Stallion of the Cimarron. Rather, it is a feature-film adaptation of “Spirit Riding Free,” a Netflix series which launched in 2017 and has completed eight full seasons, with two separate spin-off series, and one of those “Choose Your Own Adventure” style interactive shows the platform has flirted with from time-to-time.
As someone fairly plugged into entertainment options, I am not too proud to admit I have missed all of this. A quick scan through some of the series led me to experience a kind-hearted, children’s series which has a plucky heart, some easy comedy and adventure, and a triad of female besties who dub themselves the PALs. There’s a lower-budget, youthful innocence to the show; set near the turn of the 20th century in a fictional border town called Miradero, offering a significant sampling of cultural representation in a respectful and meaningful way.
On the one hand, it makes sense a feature-length expansion of this new “Spirit” franchise would come along. What’s confusing is the final product. As a feature film, Spirit Untamed looks visually amateurish in the final presentation and inexplicably retells much of what the show has already covered in several seasons of existing television.
Perhaps I have thought too long and too hard about this, but I cannot recall a television series with all of this produced content recycling events from a series as if it has never been seen before. If Spirit Untamed is a spin-off, but the film repeats itself - what are you spinning off from? If I am a kid or parent who invested the time in “Spirit Riding Free,” why am I plunking down $50 for tickets and snacks to see much of the same thing I have already watched at home, possibly dating back to as long as four years prior?
Downton Abbey produced 52 episodes of television and released a feature film four years after the series ended. Can you imagine if the film simply retold the events of the series, as if sharing it with folks for the first time?
I suppose one positive with all of this is that Spirit Untamed retains much of the same kind-hearted spirit and whimsy of the series. The film moves at breakneck speed, often too quickly, and when it begins, the movie feels like it has already been playing for 10 minutes or so and we wandered into the room late.
Scene after scene, the film just looks and feels subpar. Spirit Untamed looks like a television product and the impressive list of voiceover cast (Isabela Merced, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, Mckenna Grace and Marsai Martin among them) do not really have much to work with.
The story also is, in some ways, quite off-putting.
Merced’s Lucky is a young girl who lives with her Aunt Cora (Moore) following the death of her mother years before. Cora relocated Lucky to a far away town, while Jim, her father (Gyllenhaal), remained in Miradero. When Aunt Cora is forced to bring Lucky back to him, he turns out to be nice enough I guess, but still a guy who abandoned his daughter when he should have stepped up as a father and chose to have no meaningful contact for a really long time.
Once everyone arrives in Miradero, Spirit the Mustang is held by a nearby rancher. Lucky first finds her dad and then connects with the colt, learning to tame his “untamed spirit.” She also forms a friendship with two other young girls, Pru (Martin) and Abigail (Grace). They became “PALs” and ride horses.
Abigail’s little brother named Snips (Lucien Perez) provides comic relief here and there, and we have bad guys looking to do “bad guy stuff” in Miradero.
In the end, Spirit Untamed just leaves viewers vastly underwhelmed. The core friendship between the girls is significant and likely one of the calling cards of the Netflix series. But with animation similar to early 2000s-era, straight-to-video Barbie films, and rudderless direction from first-time directors Elaine Bogan and Ennio Torresan, Spirit Untamed lacks an original, spirited bone in its rehashed and repurposed body.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Isabela Merced, Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, Marsai Martin, Mckenna Grace, Walton Goggins, Eiza González, Andre Braugher, Lucian Perez, Gary A. Hecker
Director: Elaine Bogan
Co-Director: Ennio Torresan
Written by: Kristin Hahn, Katherine Nolfi, Aury Wallington
Based on the television series “Spirit Riding Free,” created by Aury Wallington
Based on the film “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron,” written by Josh Fusco
Release Date: June 4, 2021
Universal Pictures