MOVIE REVIEW

The storytelling and acting are on such a simplistic, no-dimensional level they make the original "Black Stallion" look as structurally complex as late Godard.

By Kenneth Turan, Times Staff Writer

"The Young Black Stallion" is not, as its advertising material insists, "The Greatest Story of Friendship Ever Told." It is something perhaps more unusual: a film truly geared to the 6-year-old level. If not younger.

It's not just that the film's 50-minute length is ideal for brief attention spans. Or that the huge Imax format can overwhelm and silence the squirmiest young person. It's that the storytelling and acting here are on such a simplistic, no-dimensional level they make the original "Black Stallion" look as structurally complex as late Godard.

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Screenwriter Jeanne Rosenberg was one of three credited writers on that film, which, like this one, was based on a Walter Farley novel. She and director Simon Wincer ("Free Willy" and the Australian horse movie "Phar Lap") no doubt had their marching orders: Make a G-rated Walt Disney family film or face the ire of the Mouse. And this is what they came up with.

It's North Africa, 1946. Young Neera (Biana Tamimi) is returning to her grandfather's house after World War II. But bad people attack her camel caravan and she has to flee on foot. She meets a wild black stallion and the two form what the press material calls "a special bond." Don't worry, she tells him, "we'll find a way home, you and me together."

Home, however, turns out to be not as she remembers it. Grandfather Ben Ishak (Richard Romanus), once a prosperous horse breeder, is now penniless and, worse, horseless. Neera forms a plan to train the black stallion and have him win a string of horses for her grandfather in an annual race. Ben Ishak is not amused. "You are just a child, a girl," he says, restating the obvious. He forbids her to race but Neera, you will not be surprised to hear, has ideas of her own.

Obviously, no one is going to come to "The Young Black Stallion" expecting gritty realism. Which is a good thing, because the huge screen format, with its built-in difficulties with composition and blocking, works against that. The screen is too outsized to handle real emotion, so the acting has to be stately and pageant-like almost by definition.

What Imax has always been good for is distance and perspective, for things like shots of desert caravans winding their way through trackless sands. Also, the high resolution means that the rock formations of Namibia and South Africa (where the film was shot) have, for those who care about such things, never looked so realistic.

Not surprisingly, what's best about "The Young Black Stallion" is its final race, with the black, subsequently named Shetan, taking on all comers in what looks like an equine version of the Ironman triathlon. Enormous care and considerable screen time were invested in the race, and it was worth it. Seeing the horses galloping through mountains and desert is something even viewers old enough to be parents can appreciate.

'The Young Black Stallion'

MPAA rating: G

Times guidelines: Suitable for all ages

Richard Romanus...Ben Ishak

Biana G. Tamimi...Neera

Patrick Elyas...Aden

Gerard Rudolf...Rhamon

Ali Al Ameri...Mansoor

Released by Walt Disney Pictures. Director Simon Wincer. Producers Fred Roos, Frank Marshall. Executive producers Jeanne Rosenberg, Kathleen Kennedy. Screenplay Jeanne Rosenberg, based on the novel by Walter Farley and Steven Farley. Cinematographer Reed Smoot. Editors Bud Smith, Terry Blythe. Costumes Jo Katsaras. Music William Ross. Production design Paul Peters. Art director Zack Grobler. Set decorator Emelia Roux Weavind. Running time: 50 minutes. In limited release.