Spirit Untamed Delivers a Great Family Adventure

Maria H. (ndm#130) (5002 Posts)

A Disney blooded, crafty, fun-lovin' wife/mom/organizer/planner, etc who is obsessed with all things Disney 🙂 Maria grew up with the Magic Kingdom and has loved watching WDW evolve into what it is today. A firm believer in the Power of Pixie Dust, she is the owner of The Disney Driven Life - A Community for Neurotic Disney People & a d.i.y. crafty blog, Carousel of Projects - create~inspire~share.

Get ready for an adventure movie perfect for the entire family! Spirit Untamed, the second chapter from the Dreamworks Animation franchise, is in theaters Friday, June 4th. Following the original movie, Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron and loosely inspired by the Netflix series, everyone’s favorite wild stallion meets his match with a headstrong teenager. But is this new adventure as untamed as the title suggests? And just how safe is this for the whole family? Let’s dive in and chat about this flick, completely spoiler-free, of course!

What is Spirit Untamed about?

official description:

Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced, Dora and the Lost City of Gold) never really knew her late mother, Milagro Navarro (Eiza González, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw), a fearless horse-riding stunt performer from Miradero, a small town on the edge of the wide-open frontier.

Like her mother, Lucky isn’t exactly a fan of rules and restrictions, which has caused her Aunt Cora (Academy Award® winner Julianne Moore) no small amount of worry. Lucky has grown up in an East Coast city under Cora’s watchful eye, but when Lucky presses her own luck with one too many risky escapades, Cora picks up stakes and moves them both back with Lucky’s father, Jim (Oscar® nominee Jake Gyllenhaal), in Miradero.

Lucky is decidedly unimpressed with the sleepy little town. She has a change of heart when she meets Spirit, a wild Mustang who shares her independent streak, and befriends two local horseback riders, Abigail Stone (Mckenna Grace, Captain Marvel) and Pru Granger (Marsai Martin, Little). Pru’s father, stable owner Al Granger (Emmy winner Andre Braugher, Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine), is the best friend of Lucky’s father.

When a heartless horse wrangler (Emmy nominee Walton Goggins, FX’s Justified) and his team plan to capture Spirit and his herd and auction them off to a life of captivity and hard labor, Lucky enlists her new friends and bravely embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to rescue the horse who has given her freedom and a sense of purpose, and has helped Lucky discover a connection to her mother’s legacy and to her Mexican heritage that she never expected.

3 things I liked about Spirit Untamed

From a parent point of view, Spirit Untamed is a visually beautiful movie. The colors are vibrant and give the feel of a small frontier town.
There is no use of colorful language or adult innuendo. This is always refreshing in a family movie.
The friendship between Lucky and her friends, Pru and Abigail, is very endearing. I think it is important for kids to see real friendships on the big screen. Watching characters make mistakes, own up to them and be forgiven is important in developing life skills.

Safe for the whole family?

Spirit Untamed is honestly a VERY tame movie. But why the PG rating? The PG rating states it is for some action adventure. This is true, but I do not feel any of the scenes were too intense for little ones. Colorful language is not present, as is adult innuendo. It is a relatively safe movie for all ages to watch. And with a run time of only 88 minutes, its just long enough to hold everyone’s attention.

Overall

Even though I may have referred to this movie as “tame,” I do think that Spirit Untamed is an adorable movie for younger children. The combination of horses, colors, adventure, and music will captivate. The short run time is perfect for adults and older kids who would otherwise not be attracted to a predictable, safe animated adventure film. Spirit Untamed is only in theaters beginning June 4th.