The family-friendly animated film Spirit Untamed is the unnecessary and fairly simple spinoff of the 2002 animated adventure, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron – a theatrical release that didn’t really have anyone asking for a sequel.
The film focuses on Lucky Prescott (voiced by Isabela Merced) who, after being less than well-behaved while living with her grandfather, is sent off to stay with her estranged father, Jim Prescott (voiced by Jake Gyllenhaal), in a sleepy little Western town. Traveling by train, Lucky spots the wild stallion, Spirit, and his horse family racing beside the tracks. She immediately becomes obsessed with the stallion.
After an uncomfortable meet and greet with her father and her first look at her bedroom, Lucky goes exploring around town and quickly becomes friends with Pru Granger (voiced by Marsai Martin), who helps her dad take care of the town’s horses and livestock, as well as cowgirl Abigail Stone (voiced by Mckenna Grace). To Lucky’s dismay, she discovers wranglers have captured Spirit in order to tame him before they sell him. Lucky learns from Pru and Abigail how to interact with Spirit to get him to trust her, and then “accidentally” releases him from his imprisonment.
Spirit’s freedom won’t last long, however, because the ruthless wrangler gathers some friends and sets out to recapture Spirit and his herd. Lucky, Pru, and Abigail team up and sneak off on an extremely dangerous adventure across deadly terrain to get to Spirit first. Their goal: to keep Spirit and his family free.
Uninspired and lacking originality, Spirit Untamed is a tedious, unfunny, and flat spinoff of a film that received only moderate praise when it hit theaters in 2002. The voice talent does a solid job of bringing the characters to life but the problem is that none of the characters are interesting.
In fact, the main character – Lucky – is not only uninspiring but also downright annoying. She’s a horrible role model for the young girls who are the film’s target audience. Lucky constantly breaks rules, puts herself and her friends in mortal danger, and yells and storms off when she doesn’t get her way. It’s almost as though the screenwriters and filmmakers are encouraging young girls to ignore, disregard, and disobey their parents if they ‘feel’ they’re in the right.
The animation is solid but nothing impressive or new. The musical score is forgettable and the adult characters are one-dimensional at best.
Spirit Untamed is dull, juvenile, and completely forgettable.
GRADE: C-
MPAA Rating: PG
Running Time: 1 hour 27 minutes
Release Date: June 4, 2021
