"The White Pony" is an abrasive children's fantasy about a girl who wants to own a horse. She is aided in the fulfillment of her dreams by a leprechaun (Warwick Davis) serves as comic relief but probably won't be funny except to young children. The plan? Capture a magic horse, train it and the girl, and win an upcoming horse show. Those experienced with competing in horse shows will instantly recognize the unlikelihood of the plan's success, but this is what these kinds of fairy tale stories are all about.

However, the horse showing part of the story is sewn together with the fantasy part in a cumbersome, ungainly fashion. And it doesn't help that the movie is not particularly knowledgeable about horses. I shudder to think the reason the subject matter wasn't more thoroughly researched was because it's a kids' movie, and who would notice? Just the kind of watered down, unintelligent mass entertainment we don't need.

At any rate, the movie's lack of understanding about horses provides a number of scattered "bad movie" laughs:

- The leprechaun makes numerous attempts to catch the wild, magic white pony, who, incidentally, is anything but. The "pony" is played by a number of different horses; among them is at least one that looks like a big tall bulky European breed. The leprechaun's first attempt to catch the horse consists of waiting for it to get near, then WHACKING it in the rear with a rope. The horse runs off. "Gotta try a better plan," the leprechaun laments.

- The horse, once caught, understandably doesn't take too much to a halter and lead rope. It's restless and writhes about. The girl tries to calm it down by YANKING on the lead rope as hard as she can.

- Once saddled up, there's the same problem. She yanks on the reigns to calm it down, but, when that doesn't work, drops them completely and walks up to the horse.

- She hops in the saddle. The horse doesn't move. It needs breaking, the girl says, inexplicably. Nope, the leprechaun says, just give it a big kick.

- There's a later scene where the horse gets out of control and RACES away...at a slow trot.

- Several scenes of the girl riding the horse aren't edited together very well. In at least one, closeups of the girl and horse clearly show the horse trotting slowly, while the interspersed long shots show it cantering quickly.

- After all the whacks, yanks, and kicks this poor horse has endured at all the wrong times, nobody ever thinks of slapping it on the rump when it won't load into a trailer.

"The White Pony" is too grating and lacking in charm to be a good kids' movie and too syrupy to be a good bad movie. Horse lovers, however, might enjoy it as either.

Rating: 2 turkeys.

Response From RinkWorks:

Is there a rule in Hollywood that if you have a leprechaun in your movie, the role has to be played by Warwick Davis? Must be a Screen Actors Guild rule or something.