Boring, self-righteous Oscar bait (**)

Rating: 4/10 (19 October 2003)

It's impossible to argue with the many people who will like this ultra-earnest, ultra-square true story about an undersized horse named "Seabiscuit" who ended up proving all the naysayers wrong and won Horse Of The Year back in 1938. It's a terrific, inspiring real-life story, it's well shot and has a great cast. The problem is, I just didn't get into it. Instead of being interested or inspired, I wound up just sleepy, especially with listening to David McCullough's bedtime-story narration.

You definitely can't argue with the cast. Tobey Maguire, Chris Cooper, and Jeff Bridges all do nice work, but they don't do anything they haven't done in many movies before. Maguire as a smart kid with lots of inner turmoil, Cooper as the wise and benevolent guy to look up to, and Bridges as the over-confident but nice guy. They've all done this stuff before, and it all just feels kind of old, even if this particular story hasn't been told before. You can just hear everyone involved thinking "Oh yeah, this is gonna get some Oscars".
It's also hopelessly corny. Even though I almost always prefer at least a little grittiness in my movies, I do like apple-pie movies from time to time ("October Sky" being an excellent example), but "Seabiscuit" just pushed the corniness too far for me. Maybe I'm cynical, but I was rolling my eyes half the time.
And whoever should have been there to tell the usually-great William H. Macy to rein in his annoying, gimmicky performance, wasn't.