Main cast: Matt Damon (Spirit), James Cromwell (The Colonel), Daniel Studi (Little Creek), Chopper Bernet (Sgt Adams), Jeff LeBeau (Murphy), Richard McGonagle (Bill), Matt Levin (Joe), Robert Cait (Jake), John Rubano (The Soldier), Adam Paul (Pete), and Charles Napier (Roy)
Directors: Kelly Asbury and Lorna Cook

What is it about Native Americans in a story that brings out the worst schmaltz and melodrama and condescension from the storytellers? This Black Beauty-meets-hysterical Native American apologia is so awfully preachy and insulting that I actually hug myself and shriek in horror when Bryan Adams’s voice comes out like stinking maggots from a pus-infested wound to seal the final agony.

You know the drill. A stallion (“Freeeee! Freeeeee to follow your heart! Mamma and Papa gone, freeeee! Horses must be freeeeee!”) named Spirit is captured by an evil white man, the Colonel, who then proceeds to yoke and torture him to do work. Spirit runs away with Native American dude called Little Creek (“Freeeee! Freeeee to follow the heart! Eagles soaring in the sky, fish in the creek, stars are my grandmothers, etc”). They bound over and down waterfalls, escape from mountain lions (“Freeee!”), starvation, and my middle finger.

And yes, yes, I know. White colonials = eeeeeeviiiil. Native Americans = pure and holy. Horses = freeeeee!

And don’t get me started about Spirit’s scary caterpillar eyebrows.

So painfully didactic in a most stupid way, this movie makes Pocahontas look like some amazing movie indeed. Perfect for kiddies who haven’t mastered the meaning of life’s little ambiguities or those adults who want to relive such unthinking and even dangerous bigoted morality, but for me, I say a big neigh to this crapfest.