Directed by Randall Wallace
(PG)
**
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It shouldn’t be possible to inject “genuine tension and suspense into a narrative we all know the ending to,” said Ann Hornaday in The Washington Post. But that’s what Disney Pictures has done with this “thoroughly entertaining” movie about the Triple Crown–winning horse considered the greatest thoroughbred of all time. The horse certainly wrings the most out of his scenes, said Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly. When Secretariat is pounding the turf at the 1973 Kentucky Derby, we’re all “as excited as children,” even though his victory is never in doubt. Anytime this movie leaves the track, though, it feels so “insistently square” that its only purpose seems to be capturing the same Christian demographic that made last year’s The Blind Side such a hit. Maybe that explains why Diane Lane, as the heiress who backs Secretariat even when her family doubts her, appears throughout to be “illuminated from within, like a medieval saint,” said Andrew O’Hehir in Salon.com. For people who love rooting for a favorite who’s been “disguised as an underdog,” this Secretariat can’t be beat.
