Film is visually sweet but time elapsed seems questionable

Rating: 8/10 (6 March 2004)

I probably would have rated this film more highly if I had not seen a year ago an "AMERICAN EXPERIENCE" PBS documentary on the actual Seabiscuit and read also at that time the Laura Hillebrand spine-tingling book. This treatment of the Depression-era saga is well-worth the time and rental cost but I found it to be a bit hard-to-believe that no one substntially ages in the film's elapsed time. Maybe it is the case that an 8-yr.-old race horse in peak running shape isn't necessarily visibly aged but I don't think that seems at all likely. I believe the David McCullough narration would have been better alloted to a different voice actor - - I kept thinking I was watching PBS-TV. I come to a feature Hollywood film with some different entertainment parameters. All in all, it is a solid "8" star film. Its stunning art direction and set decoration impress detail-watchers like me. However, when the title animal unexpectedly seems to be only a bit older than in early sequences, then I can't follow along with the director's "take" on the non-fiction title horse.