Spirit: A Longshot Or A Sure Bet?
You have probably heard that joke about the definition of a camel. It is a horse that has been designed by committee. Since film is a collaborative art, most movies are put together by committee. This is even truer in feature animation, where you not only have a director but usually co-directors and a team of artists to design and animate each character. So, given the squabbling that goes on in a committee and the intrinsic problems with animating horses, one might have expected DreamWorks' Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron to turn out looking like a double-humped dromedary, but far from it. Magnificent in scope, this DreamWorks offering for the hectic Memorial Day weekend (May 25 - 27 in the U.S.) is an animated version of an epic Western that features nearly photo-realistic horses set amid panoramic vistas of the Old West.
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is the adventurous tale of a wild mustang stallion and his journey through the untamed American wilderness of the 1800s, where he encounters the unrelenting drive of westward expansion. As far as animated features are concerned, Spirit is a genuine thoroughbred, not at all the turkey that some might expect given its broad scope and problematic nature. How come? The answer in two words: Jeffrey Katzenberg.
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