Hidalgo (2004)
Average Rating: 5.6/10
Reviews Counted: 157
Fresh: 73 | Rotten: 84
The scenery looks great, but this overstuffed horse story contains too much cheese.
Average Rating: 5.5/10
Critic Reviews: 38
Fresh: 17 | Rotten: 21
The scenery looks great, but this overstuffed horse story contains too much cheese.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 119,076
Movie Info
Actor Viggo Mortensen made his first starring appearance in a film after his breakthrough performance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with this period adventure. Frank T. Hopkins (Mortensen) is a U.S. Cavalry officer who earned a reputation as one of the fastest and most daring riders in the West; however, after taking part in the bloody massacre at Wounded Knee, Hopkins becomes disenchanted with the Cavalry, and once his hitch is up, he takes a job as a rider with a seedy touring Wild West
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Cast
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Viggo Mortensen
Frank T. Hopkins -
Omar Sharif
Sheikh Riyadh -
Louise Lombard
Lady Anne Davenport -
Said Taghmaoui
Prince Bin al Reeh -
Peter Mensah
Jaffa -
J.K. Simmons
Buffalo Bill Cody -
Zuleikha Robinson
Jazira -
Adam Alexi-Malle
Aziz -
Silas Carson
Katib -
Adoni Maropis
Sakr -
Harsh Nayyar
Yusef -
Floyd 'Red Crow' Westerma...
Chief Eagle Horn -
Elizabeth Berridge
Annie Oakley -
Victor Talmadge
Rau Rasmussen -
Frank Collison
Texas Jack -
Jerry Hardin
Nate Salisbury -
C. Thomas Howell
Preston Webb -
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David Midthunder
Black Coyote
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All Critics (166) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (73) | Rotten (84) | DVD (34)
An adventure that never met a cliche it couldn't saddle, mount and ride for a butt-numbing two hours and sixteen minutes.
Top CriticAn exciting, colorful and very appealing movie.
It's a manqué of a rousing adventure tale and not the real thing. You're constantly aware of the gulf between how the movie wants to excite you and the halfhearted execution.
Popcorn for us and oats for the horses, delivered by the tall drink of water that is Mortensen.
A hybrid of both traditional and revisionist contradictions.
... filled with cliches.
Formulaic, overly simple, too violent for tweens.
The event around which the movie revolves is a desert mirage, since there is no record of any such race ever being staged. Nonetheless, those able to ignore this outrageous historical distortion might enjoy this triumph of an underdog aganst the odds.
Even if the story were true, the film's events have been fictionalized beyond belief.
[It's] so careful about being inoffensive that it never has the guts to suggest much of anything except 'Be Nice to Others and Especially to Horses.'
Will Hidalgo survive the brutal desert to demand more creative control over his next film?
Fitfully entertaining hokum as long as it isn't taken too seriously… Remarkably, Disney doesn't whitewash the more politically incorrect elements of Hopkins' tale.
This is grand cowboy fun, a wild adventure with a glorious sense of excitement and wonder.
...why weren't the Disney folks content simply to tell a good story? Could it have been because they knew they didn't have a very good story?
The film's most harrowing scenes are predictable and utterly unoriginal.
The picture plays out with the robust character of the old Flash Gordon movies.
The stereotypes and blatant propaganda wouldn't irritate so much if the action itself wasn't so relentlessly dreary -- a desert of imagination, parched of original ideas.
Slow, plodding and arduous, though spiked with occasional hiccups of excitement.
Completely lacks the nobility, statue, and credibility due such an amazing story, even if it is an old man's folly.
It is pure popcorn fun, whether there is a grain of truth in the story, or if it is merely an entertaining western tall tale.
An entertaining western adventure that radiates simplicity.
It's a widescreen Saturday matinee movie gloriously resurrected.
A big, beautiful film that's thoroughly enjoyable even if it never tries to be meaningful.
The screen language of Hidalgo invites nostalgia for adventure films without satisfying it.
Audience Reviews for Hidalgo
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Featured
Movie: ID: 10229 Title: Hidalgo Release Date: 2004-03-05 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 3 Status: 1
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- Oceanos de fuego (ES)
The film is very schmaltzy, sappy, and emotionally manipulative, and some of it does work, but a lot of it fell flat for me. Viggo Mortensen's presence helps things out a lot, and there;s some wonderful cinematography, but some of this was just really too cheesy for me. That, and I really don't care for the opening stuff involving the Native Americans. It jsut comes off as forced, unnecessary, pandering, and really mishandled. It shouldn't even be in here, really. Also, Omar Sharif is a great guy, but give him some better material to work with, especially a character who we're supposed to like (in the end), but can't buy how it gets to that point.
Yeah, I'm ripping on this movie, and some of it is just nitpicking and personal issues, but really, this film just isn't that special or all that memorable even. Go with Seabiscuit instead, or, now that it's out, War Horse.