A Great Book... an Average Movie

Rating: 6/10 (2 January 2004)

I really wanted to like this movie, maybe the book ruined it for me... but I don't think so. I realize that going from book to screen is difficult but Seabiscuit the movie never captured the personalities(except for Smith), the excitement, or the drama that the book did. My wife watched it with me who had not read the book and her feelings were the same. The movie was just flat. The movie had none of the soul or spirit that the book did. Which is really sad.
I never felt the anguish or struggle of Pollard, I never felt the fatherly feelings Howard had toward Pollard or for that matter the love Howard had for Seabiscuit, I never really sensed how HUGE Seabiscuit's races were in the late 1930s. This should have been an enormous emotional movie. Unfortunately it just never connected with the emotions or spirit of the story.
I give it a 6 out of 10.