Lightning, the White Stallion (1986)

Pretty Good

A Masterpiece!

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

...if you can appreciate the flaws. It is a minefield of errors, misinformation, and terrible acting. Where to start? There are at least 7 different horses used as "Lightning" and all of them are clearly different. One of the best games is to drink whenever a new "Lightning" shows up on screen. He changes from an Arab to a lame horse to a Lipizzaner to a Thoroughbred. It's amazing! Couple that with editing that a blind person would be ashamed to claim: the clothing changes from angle to angle, the HORSES change in mid-jump, and people actually change places from cut to cut. On top of all of this wonder, the writers outdid themselves by writing a completely implausible storyline and the actors manage to deliver the lines in as wooden and unbelievable manner as possible.The best way to watch this is with friends playing the following drinking game:Have a drink every time: Lightning is obviously a different horse There is a blatant editing error (fill your drinks before the horse show scenes!) Mickey Rooney overacts Stephanie says something ridiculous Lucas brushes off a bitchy comment by Stephanie Stephanie walks around without a bra even though her shirt is see-throughBonus Chug: when Stephanie jumps the gate in slow-motion, chug your drink!Sorry, but with these rules, you'll be drunk within 30 minutes, which is the state you need to be in to enjoy this beauty.

I cannot believe that anyone could have payed money to see this movie. The repulsive acting from everyone (including Mme. Rene) was unbelievably horrible. First of all, the movie was rated PG but really should have been rated NC-17 because of the wardrobe malfunctions in the scene where Isabelle Lorca is sitting with her mother and stepfather in the dining room table and storms off. Maybe these producers didn't even have enough money to buy their characters bras, but then couldn't she have gotten a non-see-through shirt? It was absolutely disgusting. The whole movie, the obvious horse changes, the obvious terrible stunt changes, and the strange song made the movie impossible to watch. After seeing this sucker, my friends and I decided to make fun of it, which is really the only purpose that this movie could have possibly been made for. Also the actors looked like they had been chosen off the street. Lucas Mitchell and Stephanie Ward were positively the most ugly people who could have been in this movie. Talk about a small budget. I feel so bad for Mikey Rooney because he was in this terrible (I don't know if you could even call it a movie) movie. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE unless you have a garbage can near you to throw up in.

And I've seen some bad ones. Aside from the dialog being hokey, the plot being full of holes, the acting was stiff and unreal... I don't even know where to start. I was particularly amused at the fact that the main 'stallion' was portrayed by at least 4 different horses that were not even the same color (watchers can thrill to the feeling of the magical color changing horse!) Yes, the base color was always white, but did they really think we were dumb enough to mistake a 17+ hand warmblood dark dapple grey, a cremello pony (who I believe was a mare) a fleabitten grey horse, and a cream horse as all the same animal??? And the cut scenes were horrible. Were they supposed to show tension? action? I was confused as they showed several different horses and riders, all supposedly the same horse! The riders were wearing different color clothes! The main girl couldn't ride, her 'trainer' couldn't ride, and I'm almost ashamed of Mickey Rooney for being in this stinker! He must have needed the money badly. Avoid this one. If you want to see an uplifting horse movie, go rent Sylvester.

Lame is not a word someone wants to hear when talking about horses, but this horse film is very lame. Being a fan of both Mickey Rooney and horse pictures I thought this might have been a half way decent film capitalizing on the extremely well done Black Stallion films and TV series in which Mickey Rooney starred. Nope. Even by rip-off standards does this film come close to be much more than a waste of time. I've seen at least fifty a-girl-and-her-horse (and boy-and-his-horse) pictures ranging from old MGM B-pictures to numerous Disney outings and I've enjoyed them all. Canadian and Australian efforts usually are quiet good with this genre. The stallion and Mickey Rooney are great but the plot and dialogue is so terrible the film is better watched with the sound turn down. Murray Langston, the former "Unknown Comic" shows up as a school bus driver and actually gives one of the better performances. That should tell you something.