Doesn't Engage the viewer!

Rating: 5/10 (10 February 2004)

(spoilers??)
I was extremely disappointed in this movie. It really looked like it was supposed to be a good movie. Sport movies are supposed to be pretty darn good. Seabiscuit fails on many levels, but the worse is knowledge.

What I mean is.. This movie is very harsh on outsiders. I'm an outsider. I don't know much about horse races. Let alone Seabiscuit. The movie assumes too much. It assumes I know everything to do with Seabiscuit and Red Pollard. So I can fill in the blanks. A major plot hole is... this girlfirend of Jeff Bridges. is she his wife or is a year round girlfriend. The movie jumps around and seems very rushed. Even though it runs at 140 minutes, it's poorly paced. It spends too much time on dialogue and not enough time on building the drama that such a movie needs.
Most of my time was spent looking at my watch. Because it didn't engage me, it kept losing my interest. I'd hit pause quite a few times.
It makes poor use of the widescreen image , especially in Red's accident.

In the end, yes it's a beautiful picture, but way too many things wrong with it to be much good. Shiny, but mostly fluff.
5/10
Quality: 8/10 Entertainment: 1/10 Replayable: 2/10