Sadly Over-hyped

hyped garbage

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I grew up with horses with cups won in Horse Shows and I held a Pilots License - I know how impossible it is to deal with a terrorized horse and, although this result seemed heartless,it was the only choice after tranquilizers did not work. I just tuned into this this morning by accident and thought the movie was a real winner with more of the Olympic competitions included than just "bites". The locations and integrity to the action in filming were excellent. I hope to see it again and tape it. We often see the Shows at Spruce Meadows in Calgary Alberta on TV and it is now a premier event in the world for Show Jumping. That facility is a wonderful site and very close to the cross-country hazard jumps shown in the movie. This is an outdoors world class arena and often held under less than perfect conditions - it is quite exciting to watch for me as I am no longer able to get as close to horses as much as I would wish.

I absolutely love this movie, I cry every time...maybe because as a girl, I always wanted to ride in the Olympics, I don't know. Of course it isn't the same as the original, (another movie I love), but it's set in a completely different time...The riding sequences were great, the references to the original were good, and overall, the acting was pretty good. Christopher Plummer was a surprise, and I loved Anthony Hopkins in his part as the taskmaster coach! I own the video, and have shown it to my young daughters...they love it too!A piece of fluff definitely, but for a girl who had a dream...it's awesome!

Hmmmm. Perhaps this is an American ethnocintric movie since all we did was pay for it and produce it. However, I have heard so many rotten "American" accents from Brits that it is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. As far as the accents being "posh", one would have supposed the BRIT director would have caught a one class accent and acted appropriately. I guess his ears are class deaf too. Sarah did however, come to England as a young teenager or late preteen from Arizona (in the USA, don't cha know?), so even though her speech would hold some of the English accent, it would not have been appropriate for her accent to be totally "posh English", since people tend to keep at least part of their original accent, especially when they are as old as Sarah when they move.For those on both sides of the pond, in Britian, the accent is equated to your amount of education and/or socioeconomic rank in society. In the US, the accent generally relates to the area of the country in which you were raised. It may be altered a bit by education at a higher level than high school, or moving and staying for a good length of time in different parts of the country but is not considered an indicator of much besides your roots.All that having been said, the part of the film devoted to Sarah growing up (for example, having little idea where the money came from to being judgmental about its source, then realizing how selfish she's been) and her three day training with Anthony Hopkins, the team, and the sacrifices one makes for the team all are very true to form.I was a bit taken aback by the viciousness of the town boys chasing Sarah and Arizona Pie. Here in the US (at least at the time this movie was made), throwing things and/or hitting the car horn to startle the horse would be more usual if one felt the need to be a jerk, and the horse and rider wouldn't be followed. Unfortunately, the boys were killed in an accident of their own making before they could be civilized.I, for one, watched this movie for the horse aspects, not Tatum O'Neal, although I was surprised to see she didn't remain the same throughout the film, but learned and grew as a person. I guess that Oscar she got was earned. Since much of the eventing footage was from actual 3 day events, hopefully the German rider or horse weren't seriously injured in their fall since it was not done for amusement purposes.If you like horses, or eventing and movies in which characters change and grow, watch this movie (boring Sunday afternoon optional). If you like Tatum but are indifferent to horses or vice versa, your call, but I would say no. If you enjoy spills and thrills and killing, well, this movie will have little for you except the boys chasing Sarah and Arizona being burned to death when their car overturned while chasing Sarah. She does take a fall in that scene too, so all is not lost for those of you who are amused by that sort of thing.All in all, an entertaining (but not violent) movie for the right audience.

It really was folly to attempt to recreate the innocent magic of 'National Velvet' years later, but in 1978 they went ahead and did it. Velvet has now grown up (and turned into Nanette Newman!) and is looking after her orphaned niece Sarah (a young and talented Tatum O'Neal). Tatum loves the horses too (naturally) but this time her ambitions are higher than her aunt's - she wants to enter the Olympics.'International Velvet' is ok, and stands up as a film in its own right; but doesn't have the gloss or magic of the first film. This could just be that it was made for another audience entirely, but in a more cynical world, it was destined to bomb.Character actors in the cast do their best to liven things up (Christopher Plummer, Anthony Hopkins, Peter Barkworth, Dinsdale Landen, Richard Warwick) but this horse race doesn't really run.