Lightning, the White Stallion (1986)

...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 have watched this movie when I was younger and loved it and decided to watch it again recently. I was a bit surprised to see such negative reviews for this movie, since it does have good acting and is a good plot. At the same time I can definitely understand some of the negative reviews on here this is an extremely cheesy movie. Comparing graphics and other things to today's graphics. I do think this is a great family movie and has a very good plot and has a mix of different things that people can enjoy. If you're like me and can easily look past bad graphics and effects and love a heart warming plot then go for it, but if your like my fiancé and get too hooked on bad graphics and some some "cheese" then I would not recommend this movie.

Delightfully cheesy horse pucky, though. I agree wholeheartedly with the other reviewer--the use of stock footage of several different horses doesn't fool anyone! Not to mention the glaring continuity error--children under the age of 18 are NOT allowed to show stallions at almost all rated or USA Equestrian sanctioned horse shows. This movie is not entirely without its redeeming points though. There's a superb line of dialogue where Girl Rider wishes Bad Guy Competition Rider "Good luck" as he rides into the arena. He sneers at her and says, "When you're as GOOD as i am, you don't NEED luck." heh. awesome. I would love to get all of my barn buddies together and watch this while drinking alcoholic beverages.

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.