The sixth time around the paddock is decidedly not the charm for the latest live-action feature incarnation of Black Beauty, based on the enduring Anna Sewell-penned equine adventure.
Swapping out the title character’s gender from male stallion to female mustang, while changing the setting from Victorian England to the modern-day American West, writer-director Ashley Avis has also enlisted Kate Winslet to provide the “horse’s-eye-view” narration in keeping with Sewell’s 1877 novel (officially called Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse).
But while Winslet’s presence is always welcome, the voiceover that blankets the film proves tediously redundant, failing to enliven this dramatically flat production.
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