Delayed Reaction: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron

The Pitch: Slave/prisoner narratives are too depressing. Let's do one with a horse instead.

How I Came Into It: I've always had an issue with this for the pettiest of reasons: I remember it had a TV spot with a pull quote saying something like "More exciting than Attack of the Clones" (I can't find that commercial, sadly), which is just a foolish claim. That kind of escalated to a punchline with me when talking about the movie. I never bothered to learn anything more about it, because Star Wars-crazed teenage me knew everything I needed to about it.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) This absolutely is Horse Roots for Kids or 12 Years a Horse or some kind of Equine Unbroken. It's does well by that. It zips through the story at a good pace. The characters are eaily and quickly developed.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Why have Matt Damon narrate and so sparsely? Either commit to it fully and make this a Shawshank deal or trust in the audience and don't narrate (something like The Bear). The amount it was used in the movie came off as a compromise. Like, they tried going without narration at all, couldn't make it work, and had Damon come in to explain some key parts. Each time I heard his voice took me out of the movie. That said, the movie would've been even duller without the voice-over, but it's not up to the audience to make that work.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend