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Message: <blockquote data-quote="reapersaurus" data-source="post: 1410344" data-attributes="member: 1194">Whoa.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />Hidalgo is one of only 2 movies that my intelligence as a moviegoer felt like it got slapped around by the inane crap they chose to hobble the movie with.The other was Armaggedon.Yes, Hidalgo's plot is that bad and unbelievable, though the genre is much better, and it's easier to watch than That Movie Which Shall Not Be Named Again.Here's my review from a screening I saw a couple weeks ago:My wife and I just saw Hidalgo tonight at a "word of mouth" screening....OH... MY..... GOD.It was hideous - a train-wreck of a STORY.I am not harsh about the direction, the acting, the dialogue.... but the plot/story?!? Let me put it this way - there are now only 2 movies that I have ever seen in the theater that made me want to laugh out loud at the stupidity of what was being revealed on screen. I would gladly have LOL and had everyone glare at me, if it wasn't for us being guests at the screening.The story was terrible - there's nothing in it that makes sense.They develop parts of it (story elements), then drop them on their ass.There is utterly no reason for many aspects.[Spoiler]They have Viggo playing a half-Sioux, who grew up Native American, yet as an adult he's a rider for the white man, and actually delivers the orders to round up and confiscate the NA's weapons.Naturally, a fight breaks out and the white man slaughters the NA's (?!?), even though only a few still had guns left. (Battle of Wounded Knee)They even had orders to subdue the NA's.Viggo's character exited OFFSCREEN right before this happened, after being asked for help by one of the women.They completely missed him having any reaction, any story development there. He has nightmares (about the massacre he didn't witness), and once he goes on his trek for the race, this is promptly forgotten.As is his alchoholism.On the boat ride over, some thugs in the cargo hold accost Hidalgo inexplicably, leaving Viggo to protect his horse ("Little Brother" - never explained). Rich woman inexplicably appears in cargo hold to stop the guys from messing him up too bad. She comments about the fight, though she didn't see it (hadn't gotten down the stairs yet).Pretty forgettable, until he's doing pretty well in the race, and the completely forced romantic lead (the Shiek's daughter) decides to talk to him in his tent. Alone. At night.The guards see it, attack the tent blindly (?!?), he dives to protect her, they see him on top, and prosecute him for violating her (3's Company has nothing on this misunderstanding).BTW: Almost every major character spoke almost perfect English.Yet tons of dialogue is in .... Arabic?There were so many subtitles (rapid-fire at times), it was almost a foreign film.So the Shiek almost has to kill his daughter (for nothing, and she would have known about this "law" and not put herself in such danger by talking to whitey-"infidel") and castrate poor gentle almost-mute Viggo. (Seriously, he says like 25 lines the whole film)So he's handcuffed to a sturdy (metal-ish?) post in a caravan tent (?!?) while he's buying time talking to the Shiek who can't get enough of Wild Bill Hickock stories!In comes a raid at night by people trying to steal the pure, sacred horses.Everything occurs right around handcuffed Viggo, even the Shiek's lead man steals a precious book right in front of him. Nevermind he could have killed Viggo (the only witness). Viggo fingers him the next day.Oh - the Shiek's daughter was kidnapped, to be ransomed for the sacred horse.Viggo is the one to go try to save her. But not before using his advanced Western torturing techniques they never thought of in Arabia (rope around neck? *gasp*) to get the info of where she's at.Did I mention the girl is a tomboy? That's forbidden, of course. She can ride - was taught by the Shiek. Oh, they do NOTHING with that story point.Viggo walks into enemy stronghold with a painted horse (literally, painted black - it comes off on bad guy's hands), and shoots EVERYBODY, escaping with babe.Heroic return (this all happened on their "day off" from the race -I'm not kidding), and the race picks up. Enter white English woman, who inexplicably has power and prestige in this world, who offered Viggo 1/3rd of the winnings last night to tank the race, and offered to sleep with him, yet he refused. She's suddenly the mastermind, and oders bad guys and goons to set trap for Hidalgo and Viggo. Don't kill him, though - set him adrift in sand, to think. So the next day in the last leg of the race, Viggo saves a random guy (against the race's guidelines). Nothing is done with this later.Then the bad guys spring the trap they've cleverly set out: they're going to drive Hidalgo into a tiger-pit filled with stakes that they've dug in the desert, with no supporting walls, hoping that Viggo will ride into the 10' wide strip of sand in the middle of a desert.Never mind that they ride right next to him, pushing him around, and don't use their guns to just shoot him (or the horse).They actually show them fall in, and Hidalgo is impaled thru the side.I figure, wow - they actually killed the horse - gonna be a non-Hollywood movie?No - Viggo takes out the ONE STAKE (in a pit filled with them), and somehow Hidalgo's OK to race (?!?)Oh - some unexplained guy helped them out of the pit, too. But bad guy shoots him, but not Viggo. For HIM, there's a sword fight.Bad guy somehow backs onto one of the extra pits they made that Viggo didn't know about (?!?) and STANDS THERE.Allows Viggo to rope the lever that releases the trap. Guy falls straight down and is impaled on multiple spears (though a sprinting horse a good 8' long missed all but one... and is good to go).There's a guy with a falcon that I swear disappears near the end of the storyline. Or was that the prince? I coulda sworn they were 2 different people.... ?So Viggo and Hidalgo stumble on (where did all of bad guy's goons go?), until they collapse in the desert. Hidalgo's so bad Viggo's gonna shoot him in the head. Viggo has a fever-dream of his spirit people. Literally, they just appear. Oh - he has strength to sing a NA chant. Prince appears, taunting Viggo. Hidalgo miraculously GETS UP...... and Viggo's instantly better, and they go on to SPRINT the rest of the race. They win.Oh - Viggo celebrates by riding to the ocean, STILL RIDING HIS ALMOST DEAD HORSE IN WATER IT CAN'T DRINK.Everybody is suddenly cured of their racism towards the Infidel, and cheer him. Shiek digs him. Babe does too, but he leaves for home and nothing is done with the love interest they wasted almost a half hour on. [/spoiler]Sorry for the blab - had to get that all out - ahhhhh, it's exorcised now.I give it a 3 out of 10, just because Viggo's good as a rough, silent cowboy, and it's a good genre.Oh - I blissfully forgot.The movie didn't end there.The denouement shows [Spoiler]Viggo riding up to save the last (?) of his people's wild horses in the most over-blown, laughably-maudlin scene I think I've ever witnessed. The horses are let free of the stable (and some actually break thru the fence) and roam free over the plains.Oh - and Hidalgo JOINS THEM, in the goodbye of the movie.Never mind that this flies in the face of the main theme of the movie: that you aren't tied by tradition, and that your will is what makes your life, not your blood or your station.Hidalgo had CHOSEN to be domesticated, partnering with Viggo. For him to go back and frolic on the plains with the other Mustangs at the end throws their relationship right out the window, and enforces that Hidalgo must be with the other horses, because he's trapped by his bloodline to be one of them. [/spoiler]The entire last 1/3rd of the movie is an insult to the audience. The writers thought that we were so stupid that we'd forget that this was a 3,000 mile grueling race, and that we [Spoiler]needed a Belmont Stakes sprint to finish the movie. Oh, and that one silly symbolic act like freeing some horses somehow makes up for him turning his back on his people, and the Sioux losing their culture.This one makes all the complaints about The Last Samurai look laughably tiny. [/spoiler]</blockquote>

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