Film Review: Black Beauty

It sure has been a while? Whoops. I will kick things back off with a review of the 1994 adaptation of Black Beauty. Now, maybe this sort of thing is to your taste, maybe not. I foolishly decided to rewatch this tonight, having nothing better to do, and feeling a little nostalgic. I saw this movie in the theatre when it came out, and remembered this about the experience:

1. The movie was very, very sad.

2. Merrylegs, the sassy pony at the beginning and his antics.

3. There were two old biddies sitting behind me chattering about the movie. And they sounded just like the "pepperpots" from Monty Python's Flying Circus (I lived in Britain at the time).

However, I also remembered generally liking it, and since it had the advantage of featuring my favorite eye candy, not that I will publicly admit any names, (hint: the names should rhyme, and yet, they do not! madness!) it seemed like a pleasant diversion. And so, to the movie review!

Based on the classic book by Anna Sewell, this movie depicts the life and times of Black Beauty, the eponymous horse, from birth to old age. He is born and has an idyllic first few years on an unnamed farm, and is trained up for riding, and eventually sold to a well to do family to drive their carriages. At his new home, he makes friends with the other horses, and forms a special bond with Ginger, with whom he drives as a team. Much is also made of the relationship between Black Beauty and Joe, a young stable hand. Too soon, however, the family must move, and they sell their horses. Beauty and Ginger go the the stables of a nobleman and his wife, who insist on fitting out their horses fashionably, generally mistreating them in the process. After a disfiguring injury, Beauty is sold as horse for hire, and eventually to the family of a hansom cab driver, who treats him kindly until the father becomes too ill to continue in the profession sells Beauty, or Blackjack as he is now known, to be used as a cart horse for a flour mill. Eventually, broken and emaciated, Beauty is at a dismal horse market, when who should come around but Joe the stable hand, now grown.

I have left out the most depressing plot points, in case you want to watch this and experience the trauma undiluted. Beauty's thoughts are expressed by a voiceover, which became very cheesy at parts, but I can't deny its potency as a tearjerker. It's really a beautiful film to look at, though the beginning is a little saccharine for my taste. Foxes and bunnies and hedgehogs and foals! There are plenty of hard knocks to make up for the excess cuteness after the beginning sequence.

Overall, I will give this movie a B+: It was kind of cheesy, but it's ostensibly a kids movie, so I'm willing to let that slide in light of the fact that it was so very effective at making me weep like a fool for an hour.