Review: Curse on a Grand Champion

When I first heard of this movie, I thought it was a joke that a friend of mine made in order to win a contest. However, when I heard it was actually being made, then I quickly realized that he wasn’t joking. Would the movie itself, while being a ‘real movie,’ prove to be a joke nonetheless? That is the question I asked myself when last Friday I went to see:

Yes, the little girly toys of pretty horses was actually made into a movie. I had understandably low expectations when I walked into the theater. There were horsie displays and little girls everywhere. However, that would all change once the movie actually began.

The first thing that changed my mind was the previews. Well, one preview in particular. I figured it’d be previews for Barbie movies or something, but one movie looked particularly good. It’s called “Tickles on a Murderer.” I didn’t catch most of the plot, but that’s seriously a cool title for a movie. Plus, it’s got Danny Glover and Spiderman. That’s not a terrible combo right there.

So, the movie started, and it was going pretty slow for a while. I didn’t expect too much. After all, French Stewart’s movies have never really been classified as particularly “good” in my eyes. Adding Leslie Neilson to the cast did help a bit, but he died off pretty quickly, so it didn’t really do too much for me. Besides, the real stars of this movie were the Grand Champions. I mean c’mon... they’re the most beautiful horses in the world!

The basic premise of the movie is (according to the movie’s official site) “their true beauty is tested when one of them is cursed by the evil witch horse Pon-evil, who lives in the dark castle high atop Pony Ville Mountain. Now the Grand Champions have to work together in beautiful ways to save their beautiful champion friend in a beautiful tale that will melt your heart and beautiful beautiful.” I missed most of the plot, but it wasn’t for bad reasons, because the script was actually pretty well written. No, I missed much of it because of the amazing CGI used. The horses were all CGI to look EXACTLY like they did as toys. Here’s some stills from the movie’s site:

Simply amazing.

The villain, the evil witch horse was okay. Not an overly great performance as a horse, but I was amazed that it was played by Alfred Hitchcock.

Not a great return to the big screen, but not too bad considering the fact that he’s not really an actor and is well beyond dead.

All in all, I thought this was actually a pretty good movie. I won’t ruin the ending, but it’s pretty awesome. Let’s just say it’s pretty surprising. I think this picture (one the final images from the movie) pretty much sums it up: