Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron isn’t a very well-known film from DreamWorks, and yet it has surprisingly built an interesting legacy for itself. While it got mixed reception from critics and didn’t do particularly well at the box office, it managed to get nominated for Best Animated Feature at the years’ Oscars and even built an expanded franchise including video games, a book series, and even a spin-off Netflix television series, Spirit: Riding Free (which also got its own film in 2021 to equally middling results). Seemingly developing a following without much strong reasoning, Spirit remains that random early DreamWorks feature that doesn’t have a ton of greatest to lure people in with but had enough captivation to at least stay in the public awareness far longer than many would’ve expected.

In the American Old West during the American Indian Wars, a Kiger mustang stallion named Spirit (voiced by Matt Damon through narration) is born to a herd of wild horses and eventually becomes their leader, but while inspecting a camp of soldiers, he is captured and taken away from his mother and herd. Placed in a US calvary fort where he’s expected to be broken in by the camp’s Colonel (voiced by James Cromwell), Spirit manages to find an exit with the help of a recently captured Lakota named Little Creak (voiced by Daniel Studi) but winds up being taken in by his tribe before he can return home. Even though he does slowly grow attached to Little Creak and his pet mare, Rain, the soldiers continue to cause problems for both him and the Lakota tribe, forcing Spirit to confront them (and especially the Colonel) once again before he can finally make his journey back home and become a free horse once again.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is pretty unconventional despite containing many standard components, and fails to fully come together thanks to an underwritten concept, pretty short running time, and lack of a solid tone and identity, but with the help of some incredibly expressive and atmospheric visuals, few to no forceful cinematic cliches and a main character and driving force that’s very easy to identify with, it’s a mixed bag that’s still worth looking into.

Originally conceived by co-founder of DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Spirit was a movie that despite looking pretty straightforward on the outside, had a lot of time and effort put into it. Even excluding the four-year animation process that combined traditional hand-drawn and computer animation together, this is a movie that feels like it had dedicated effort put into a lot of its overall facets, which is ironic as the actual story feels a tad underbaked. The core premise is a good one, as watching a horse in the old west try to win back its freedom after being captured by soldiers taking part in a bigger all-encompassing war of the region, does create a connectable desire the audience will want to see fulfilled, and with writer, John Fusco (who wrote many stories in the Western and Native American genre) working on the screenplay, the ties to the history of the American west and clear parallels between the horses and the Native American people of the time, are apparent and interesting, meaning there could be room for a very thorough and mature story here, but it doesn’t feel like Spirit goes far enough in any direction to really make the best of what it has. With DreamWorks releasing this film after Shrek (which would become one of their flagship films), the studio was set to have a personality shift in how they presented and constructed their features, and Spirit suffers with this transition by not offering much for very young children, but also not having much for adults either.

It lacks the poignancy and gravitas of The Prince of Egypt or the self-referential, tepid raunchiness of The Road to El Dorado and Shrek to work for teens or more mature audiences, but also doesn’t really have much that’d entertain kids (outside of just watching ‘’pretty horses’’ galloping around), leaving it with a very confused tone that tries to dilute the tragedy of a horse being stripped from its home and forced to slave for a encroaching group of humans with comedic bits, over-the-top music, and the animated flair expected of a DreamWorks film at the time. With that said, while the movie is confused and doesn’t have the maturity that’d allow it to really be its best self, it features enough deviations from the animated norm of the time to at least be memorable. The film is surprisingly very sparse of dialogue (with only an occasional line from the surrounding humans and a narration by Matt Damon), and while this prevents the story and characters from being very complex, there is a pureness and authenticity to its delivery and execution that feels pretty nice. The direction by Kelly Asbury and Lorne Cook isn’t perfect, but can still lead to some pleasant as well as harsher moments, it doesn’t have too many cliched plot points or supporting roles, the characters are still memorable and have personality through how they’re animated and used in the story, and the musical score and animation are so strong and expressive that it carries the audience until the end even if it could’ve been a lot more with a stronger, better fleshed out script.

Taking a western story and putting in from the perspective of a horse could be a pretty interesting idea in the lens of animation, and this movie does do a great job capturing the distinct attributes of these creatures and portray them very nicely. This is largely thanks to the incredible animation work on them, with how fluid their movements and expressions are, with the main character especially having so much personality despite never actually talking throughout. The film isn’t totally silent as Matt Damon does provide a voice-over for the horse’s thoughts (which is never that informative or effective due to Damon’s performance being a little flat), but it never proves to bothersome as it’s still sparsely included and the horse’s expressions are so strong that it’s always clear what he’s thinking or feeling in any moment. While DreamWorks was never going to take a risk and do a film with no dialogue, they go further than most would expect (none of the animals talk and only emote through facial expressions and actual horse mannerisms and noises), and because the set-up is very easy to follow, it’s never hard to tell what’s happening.

The relationships formed in the film are also pretty strong despite the lack of dialogue, with each pivotal character having enough involvement and believable chemistry to leave a lasting impression. The connection between Spirit and his mother is appropriate sweet and leads to a nice reunion at the end, the bond between Spirit and Little Creak is nicely built up due to their shared imprisonment and eventual growing closeness, Spirit and Rain have a sweet romance despite only being introduced in the second act, and even the relationship between Spirit and the Colonel trying to break him leads to a weirdly anti-climactic but still memorable ending. Maybe with a more traditional execution, these roles could’ve been fleshed out more, but the fact that they still led to memorable bonds even with no dialogue or much story elevation is pretty impressive and shows the work that the animators, writer and directors put into this movie.

Despite DreamWorks eventually adopting a complete 3D CGI preference (like every other major animation studio sadly), they had a decent chunk of quality 2D animated projects early in their lifespan, and they looked pretty good with Spirit being no exception. The aforementioned expressive models are clearly a highlight, as the way the film is able to still keep these horses feeling authentic through their movements and mannerisms whilst giving them humanistic facial expressions is no small feat, and this more than likely is due to getting legendary animator, James Baxter, to work on the film, with his fluid models and dramatic camera movements really bringing an elegant presence and even scale to this movie. While the inclusion of 3D can look pretty dated nowadays, it does at least feel like they were experimenting in an effort to make the experience more engaging, and this can be felt during any of the running or chase sequences, which look and feel really great due to the close-quarters camera work, speedy momentum and visuals, and believable sound effects.

With the strong color and lighting, nice backgrounds that almost have a painted quality to them, and enough atmospheric moments to add some level of weight to what sadly isn’t a very dramatic presentation, it’s sad that this style would soon be left behind by DreamWorks as they had great talent that had shades of Disney, but never felt one-to-one. What Disney does have over them is the song department, with the soundtrack for this film being hotly debated for many years, with audiences fighting over whether they love them or hate them. With the songs written by Bryan Adams, they don’t in any way match the style or supposed mood of the story, but even removing that element, they sound unpleasant to listen to and pointlessly try to fill in the ambient silence with a roundabout way of discussing what’s happening on screen, they are hands down the worse aspect of this film. What’s even worse is that it overshadows the legitimately great score handled by the always impressive Hans Zimmer, with a sound that feels similar to past Western tracks but has the benefit of modern-day improvements and the energy of a kid’s movie from the 2000s to elevate it to new levels.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron did manage to survive through future projects and spin-offs despite not performing well at the time of its release or being discussed as openly by most DreamWorks or animation fans, but even with this film being flawed in certain areas, it does have a gentle purity to it that makes it hard to truly dislike. The mature, atmospheric, mostly-silent film that could’ve come from this is mostly sidestepped for something that doesn’t really know what it wants to be and plays things weirdly too cheerily for the time period and situation (in an era where too many animated films are pointlessly PG, this arguably needed to be higher than G), but with incredible animation, a connectable narrative and leading character, and some unconventional elements that help it stand out, this stallion is one that can’t really be tamed and arguably is better off as a free wandering spirit.