Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps the worst horse movie ever made!, July 28, 2004
Hoo boy, where to start? I hadn't seen this movie since I was a kid, and I remembered liking it, so when I saw the bad reviews here, I was a bit surprised. Then I decided to dig it out after all these years and watch it again. It's every bit as bad as the others here have said!
The plot is ridiculous. A groom runs off with an expensive stallion belonging to a heavily indebted millionaire (Mickey Rooney), then crashes while driving drunk. A school-bus driver stops, unloads all the kids, has them haul the inebriated man into the bus, and drops him off at the hospital on the way to school, leaving one of the students, Stephanie Ward (Susan George) behind to look after him! The thief proceeds to provide Stephanie, a complete stranger, with his and the horse's real names, gives her 15% ownership, and allows her to compete with the stolen stallion (originally Cloverdale III, renamed "Lightning" by Steph). Steph alternates between professing love for the horse and talking about how she can sell him for a lot of money if he becomes a champion, because she needs the funds for an eye operation, else she'll be blind within a year.
Even severe suspension of disbelief won't get you through this movie. Despite the stolen animal supposedly being worth a fortune, the police are never involved. Instead, two teenagers (Steph and her boyfriend) hunt down the criminals themselves. Stephanie somehow wins the national horse show, defeating an adult 5-time national champion, with only two previous shows as the sum total of her lifetime showing experience. The hospital sends her medical reports (diagnosis: "an eye disease") to her riding instructor before Stephanie herself receives any word. It just goes on and on...
The acting is abominable. I can't think of a single line in the entire film that was uttered in even a halfway-believable fashion. When she first interacts with the horse, Stephanie jumps and skitters around like a scared rabbit, despite laying claims to having years of equine experience, in an attempt to gain the trust of a horse so docile it looks half asleep. But perhaps Lightning's docility explains the reason he plods along like a plowhorse while Steph's boyfriend drives his noisy motorcycle right alongside! The bad guys are so inept as to be unintentionally comical rather than seeming threatening in any way. The one fight scene is an absolute farce. And though they apparently had a gun the whole time, they don't pull it out until the very end, and never actually use it.
Now we get to the horses. Lightning himself is played by at least three different equines - one nearly completely white, one a fleabitten grey, and another a light dapple grey. His muzzle alternates between dark grey and pink, he changes from chunky to streamlined between one scene and the next, and his face is sometimes dished, sometimes slightly roman-nosed! In the show ring, he has braids in all the full-body shots and a loose mane in all the facial closeups. The other horses in the shows are no better. One enters the show ring with no facial markings, develops a snip somewhere along the way, and leaves with a star. Another switches between a star and a blaze with each jump it goes over.
I love horses, but this is undoubtedly one of the worst films around. If you like watching bad films just for kicks, you'll have a great time with this one. I can't imagine why it appealed to me when I was little, but I suppose young kids are less likely to pick up on ridiculous plotlines and horrid acting. I can't comment on the DVD version, as I only own the VHS. My advice, though, is just skip it...
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Horrible!, May 16, 2003
Wow, this movie was so bad I really don't even know where to start! I got the white stallion because the cover stated,"Classic family entertainment in the tradition of The Black Stallion." That is far from the truth! This movie is about as far from the Black Stallion as you can get! In previous reviews, people stated that the movie was so bad it was funny. That is true, my favorite is the fact that a sixtyish Mickey Rooney is in love with a twenty year old woman! It's hysterical! The plot is a joke, and really not worth mentioning, and the acting is terrible! The main character, goes to the doctor, and he tells her she has, "an eye disease." that's it, that is the prognosis, and she may go blind from it! All in all, the movie is not worth watching, the horse really doesn't have a major role in this movie. He doesn't have a stong bond with the girl, and the only reason she likes him is because he is worth a lot of money, and she can sell him to cure her, "eye disease". Don't even bother with this one people, go watch something worth it. I would suggest The Black Stallion, The Horse Whisperer, Phar Lap, and National Velvet. Now those are wonderful horse movies!
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9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A movie barely cobbled together, January 1, 2005
Stephanie (Isabel García Lorca) finds a beautiful white stallion one day and takes it home with her - "Honest, Dad, he followed me home from school" - and turns him into a show-jumper. Meanwhile, Lightning's rightful owner, Barney (Mickey Rooney) is wondering what's become of his horse. Perhaps it's karma for taking something that isn't hers, because shortly after finding the critter Stephanie is diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease and has her pride and joy stolen from her by Barney's creditors. Lazy acting meshes with the poor continuity, and overwrought storyline.
Staci Layne Wilson
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