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100It's an extraordinary feat of animation, possibly the most lovingly conceived, uncompromisingly executed and totally successful animated film since "The Lion King."
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90It's classic animation wedded to modern technology -- painted pictures that move in magical splendor.
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90The movie's big action scenes, at times, make you forget you're even watching animation. There's an in-your-face sequence involving a runaway, crashing train that will make you squirm in your seat trying to get out of the way.
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83An animated fairy tale made with simple, elegant conviction.
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The animators have re-created equine movement and behavior with uncanny verisimilitude.
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75The film is short at 82 minutes, but surprisingly moving, and has a couple of really thrilling sequences.
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75A welcome family film that extols noble values and offers first-class animation.
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75A cartoon that's truly cinematic in scope, and a story that's compelling and heartfelt - even if the heart belongs to a big, four-legged herbivore.
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75A poetic and lovely tale, told as a silent picture with music and narration.
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75Those for whom Spirit was made will find this to be a thoroughly enjoyable production. As a "kids' movie", Spirit is a resounding success.
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75Visually the film is a knockout. I'm not sure this will matter to the young adult audience, but the film is philosophically confusing.
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70For all its retro design, Spirit actually represents a delicate marriage of the hand and the computer.
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70It's a pretty, high-strung story, handsomely done in traditional animation (mostly by hand) that you can take the kids to without wincing.
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63Popcorn-buyers, beware: This is no "Shrek," with raucous adult humor sailing over the heads of wee ones. This is "Sesame Street"-level, with white hats, black hats and simple moral messages.
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63Spirit lacks that essential emotional resonance, and suffers because of it.
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60Despite its good intentions, Spirit is more self-conscious and uninspiring from a dramatic point of view than one might have wished. Still, whenever it threatens to get bogged down in earnest dramaturgy, a stirring visual sequence -- rouses us.
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50The action is mild enough for fairly young children, and grownups may enjoy its old-fashioned spirit.
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50The result is a mishmash that is sometimes moving, sometimes absurd and most of the time just oddly off balance.
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50Rather exciting, rendered in a bright sunset palette and a mixture of expressive, boldly drawn traditional animation and fluid computer-generated imagery.
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50It's handsomely mounted, and its heart seems in the right place, but that's not reason enough to put on a show.
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40Spirit's narration comes to us courtesy of Matt Damon, who, having played a horse's ass in some of his earlier movies, perhaps thought it wise to inhabit the entire nag this time around.
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40As it stands, "Spirit" provides neither the profound human touch of the great Disney animation of the past, nor the dazzling, high-tech fun of present-day digital cartooning.
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40Saddled with a sentimentally "sincere" subject and lacking the stylistic and humorous cachet of the recent computer-animated smashes.
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30Can barely limp to its final CinemaScope sunset shot.
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25A boring, wincingly cute and nauseatingly politically correct cartoon guaranteed to drive anyone much over age 4 screaming from the theater.
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20Think "The Lion King" redone for horses, with fewer deliberate laughs, more inadvertent ones and stunningly trite songs by Bryan Adams.
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20Dreary adventure. Parents, be forewarned: No talking equines means more songs, and the viselike soundtrack might be someone's idea of a cruel joke: hoarse whisperer Bryan Adams.
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16The animation is dull, the thought is fuzzy, the storytelling is vague and the music just plain stinks. It's not "National Velvet," it's sure not "The Black Stallion," it's not even "Dances With Wolves."
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10It's an exceptionally dreary and overwrought bit of work, every bit as imperious as Katzenberg's "The Prince of Egypt" from 1998.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 22 out of 25
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Mixed: 0 out of 25
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Negative: 3 out of 25
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