Lightning, the White Stallion
Lightning, the White Stallion
PG | 17 October 1986 (USA)
Lightning, the White Stallion Trailers

When a stolen white stallion escapes his captors, young Stephanie Ward gives him a new home and a new name: Lightning. As she grooms the horse for show-jumping competition, the pair forms an unbreakable bond. But when Stephanie finds herself in need of an expensive operation, and Lightning's original owner tracks him down, Stephanie sets all her hopes on first prize at the Nationals - and on the horse who's become her best friend!

Reviews
Wizard-8

With Mickey Rooney in the cast, and a title that in part reads "...the White Stallion", it is pretty obvious that the makers of this movie were trying to cash in on the success of "The Black Stallion". Unfortunately, this movie fails in just about every aspect that you can think of. While Rooney may be top-billed, he only has a limited amount of footage, and he doesn't exactly give a memorable performance. Speaking of a limited performance, the title horse actually spends most of the second half of the movie offscreen. And the treatment of the horse when it is on screen is nothing special; even kids will wonder why this horse is considered so special. The movie shows some signs of problems behind the scenes, with various plot threads (like the heroine's failing eyesight) being dropped or wrapped up extremely quickly. The movie is nicely photographed, but the drab southern California locations aren't that much enhanced by it. In short, this is another loser movie from producer Harry Alan Towers.

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auwhite

I cannot believe that anyone could have payed money to see this movie. The repulsive acting from everyone (including Mme. Rene) was unbelievably horrible. First of all, the movie was rated PG but really should have been rated NC-17 because of the wardrobe malfunctions in the scene where Isabelle Lorca is sitting with her mother and stepfather in the dining room table and storms off. Maybe these producers didn't even have enough money to buy their characters bras, but then couldn't she have gotten a non-see-through shirt? It was absolutely disgusting. The whole movie, the obvious horse changes, the obvious terrible stunt changes, and the strange song made the movie impossible to watch. After seeing this sucker, my friends and I decided to make fun of it, which is really the only purpose that this movie could have possibly been made for. Also the actors looked like they had been chosen off the street. Lucas Mitchell and Stephanie Ward were positively the most ugly people who could have been in this movie. Talk about a small budget. I feel so bad for Mikey Rooney because he was in this terrible (I don't know if you could even call it a movie) movie. DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE unless you have a garbage can near you to throw up in.

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oneandonly_jenn

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.

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SanDiego

Lame is not a word someone wants to hear when talking about horses, but this horse film is very lame. Being a fan of both Mickey Rooney and horse pictures I thought this might have been a half way decent film capitalizing on the extremely well done Black Stallion films and TV series in which Mickey Rooney starred. Nope. Even by rip-off standards does this film come close to be much more than a waste of time. I've seen at least fifty a-girl-and-her-horse (and boy-and-his-horse) pictures ranging from old MGM B-pictures to numerous Disney outings and I've enjoyed them all. Canadian and Australian efforts usually are quiet good with this genre. The stallion and Mickey Rooney are great but the plot and dialogue is so terrible the film is better watched with the sound turn down. Murray Langston, the former "Unknown Comic" shows up as a school bus driver and actually gives one of the better performances. That should tell you something.

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