22
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 50TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghBodrov's staging and cutting does a perfectly good job conveying their anthropomorphized feelings and motives; the spoken drivel is just a distraction. The film's human characters are largely inconsequential.
- 50USA TodayMike ClarkUSA TodayMike ClarkIt's just too soon after those silly talking dinosaurs to put up with any movie about a talking horse.
- 38New York PostLou LumenickNew York PostLou LumenickSuffers from terminal hoof-in-mouth disease.
- 30Chicago ReaderLisa AlspectorChicago ReaderLisa AlspectorThe majesty of the landscape and the sweetness of a plot strand about the horse learning survival skills from a 12-year-old girl might have been more intriguing without the cloying voice-over.
- 20Dallas ObserverJean OppenheimerDallas ObserverJean OppenheimerAwful narration almost ruins the ghostly, gorgeous Running Free.
- 20The New York TimesDana StevensThe New York TimesDana StevensVacillates between cutesy Disney-style anthropomorphism and "Born Free" exoticism.
- 10VarietyVarietyA profoundly disappointing attempt to reinvigorate the animal movie genre with the classic ingredients of physical poetry and mythical storytelling.
- 10Film.comGemma FilesFilm.comGemma FilesIf you're looking for something child-appropriate that'll actually keep the little darlings awake for two hours straight, you'd do better...and cheaper...to just stay at home with the Discovery Channel.
- 10L.A. WeeklyRon StringerL.A. WeeklyRon StringerLet horses be horses, scrap the tin-eared Lukas Haas narration.
- 0Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanThis may be the first talking-animal movie in which the critter hero seems to have been body-snatched by a commentator from C-SPAN.