Wildfire: The Arabian Heart (2010) User Reviews

Utterly painful

[dietcoke2010 · 4/10 · 23 August 2010]

Dialogue was awful from the start. Sound editing was beyond bad - I don't know if it was mic placement but one moment you would hear the actress talking, and the next it was as though you were across the room.

Tack on the poor soundtrack and this one isn't just a no - it's a hell no. I've seen better dialog, mechanics and acting on the Disney channel.

I am sure that the filmmakers had good intentions here, but there's nothing worse than a rush job or a job done in an amateur fashion. That really seemed to be the case here.

yes it was bad but..

[lynn32 · 3/10 · 30 December 2010]

to the girl from Canada... it was made in Minnesota.. that is also where the actors are mostly all from.

The reason the movie is such bad quality is because it was made by a bored millionaire who literally woke up one morning and thought "i think ill make a movie" while i agree the movie was done badly.. some of the actors could actually act... it is just the fact that the ones around them couldn't which made them look bad. And the quality of the movie itself did not help either. Obviously the main girl could not act but Alex and Samantha acted their parts out very well. It is just unfortunate for both of them that their names will always be tied to this film

It's not so much the bad acting....

[redbullsammerson · 3/10 · 16 February 2013]

Okay, YES the acting is horrible, for a movie, in fact, this is definitely the worst acting I've seen in a movie. But the acting isn't horrible all around. I felt like I was watching a bootlegged recording of a stage presentation. I got the feeling that this would have made a really good play and the actors were probably all stage actors or drama students. There's a difference, stage actors tend to over act in order to add a little flair to the stage, movies don't need that extra umph because they have production budgets that fill in the holes.

However, since the budget on this movie was so low, it's understandable why it turned out this way. I wouldn't say it's a horrible movie, the story line is decent if you can get past the acting, just don't be prepared to expect too much.

Perfect for "Bad Movie Night"

[imdb-10630 · 1/10 · 13 October 2010]

The perfect inaugural movie for "Bad Movie Night". I gathered my film-making friends, opened the bar, and we enjoyed a fantastic evening mocking this terrible cinematic creation.

For a movie this bad, it's hard to know where to start. Plot holes large enough to drive a grip truck through, a lack of any recognizable acting ability, the substandard script, the redundant (borderline obnoxious) soundtrack, the under-mixed audio, the typo-ridden credits... the list is long. Truly awful. And there were no bonus features on the DVD - I was at least hoping for a director's commentary to laugh at, as well!

As one of my friends said: "I laughed, I cried, I want my money back." And it was a free screening.

Everyone Associated With This Movie Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves

[jquail02 · 1/10 · 7 August 2013]

The only positive thing to say about this film is that it makes Coleman Francis's "The Skydivers" look good by comparison. I strongly suspect it was made by community-college film students or by people who desperately needed union cards. The plot is like an outline of every horse movie ever cross-pollinated by a family drama (or rather a failed attempt at one; as we know nothing about the characters when the 'dramatic revelations' are revealed, we don't care), the footage looks like it was shot with a camcorder, if by some miracle the sound recorders and editors are in the union they should be kicked out, the credits look like they were made by someone playing with Power Point fade-ins...the movie alleges to be about a girl finding her true love (with whom she has as much chemistry as she does with the John Deere utility vehicle) while training to ride a horse in a big race. The teen actors can't act, the horse is basically there to stand around (SPOILER: he drops dead of "age", despite being in what for an Arabian is early middle age at best, most failure to research, before this big race can come off) and be patient, the movie has more free-range children than a 1950s Japanese monster movie (the heroine's little brother has more genuine emotion and chemistry saying goodbye to his friend, who we've never seen before and will never see again, than she does with anything). At least one line is blatantly cribbed from Star Wars for no reason any sane person could determine. The woefully fake "electric fence" shock is an apparent attempt to reference Jurassic Park but would work better if the director and editor had some idea how to use cutaway shots. Frankly I wouldn't be at all surprised if they filmed at ValleyFair Amusement Park by buying tickets and smuggling their cameras in their backpacks. The vet character is only ever filmed with his face obscured-clearly the smartest person connected with this film. I give this one star because zero isn't an option, though I suppose I ought to give it two for finally showing me there are movies out there worse than "Red Zone Cuba" (because hey, at least that had John Carradine singing the theme song.) Thank God I got this in a DVD bundle for $3 with a halfway-decent movie at Wal-Mart. I sincerely hope no one connected with this production ever saw a dime from it. They owe anyone who ever sat through it instead. I've sat through the worst Mystery Science Theater had to offer (yes, even the unedited, un-snarked versions of some, like "The Head That Wouldn't Die".) By comparison, they're all art.

The horse was pretty.

Seriously: The worst-made film I've ever seen!

[probono-819-387200 · 1/10 · 15 August 2010]

From the beginning, it looked like a home-made! Nothing against home-made or low budget films, they can be good -- but this one surely isn't! How it got a rating of 8+ I don't understand, I guess the 10 votes came from relatives & friends of these amateur actors. It just went from bad to worse, bad acting, very bad sound and editing, awful directing etc. etc. -- it is simply impossible to do the subject justice. Most of the time it sounds like the actors are reading their scripts off, the sound fades and some actors' voice come across muffled (maybe their mikes didn't work? Or they were too far away from the recording mike.) Scene changes are arbitrary, sometime a bunch of new characters appear on screen without being introduced in any way, then later they may just walk off to the side, leaving the set. Well, enough said...

Will never improve with age

[terrykovarik · 1/10 · 11 May 2015]

Rented this through Blockbuster vending machine for my grand kids. It didn't take 15-minutes before they were griping about how stupid it was (and they weren't even ten-years old). To say this production was poorly made would be to give it a compliment which it doesn't deserve. Bad writing and editing, dialog that could only be surpassed by reading the phone book from cover to cover aloud and more wooden performances than a Pinocchio family reunion are just the tip of how awful this film was. Five years since viewing it, it proves that some things unlike cheese and wine don't improve with age. "Wildfire" can safely be added to this list. This dud puts family-values films in a very bad light. I give a "1" only because "1/2" isn't and option.

P.S.

A great family values film? Bought worse for $5.00 at Walmart? Compared with what other titles? You'd really have to scrape the bottom of the bin to find anything more putrid. Granted it's not like the zombie- themed flicks that seem so prevalent these days. But come on, make more like this? Whatever family value lessons "Wildfire: The Arabian Heart" might have to share are buried by terrible acting, script writing that needs some intensive RIGHTING and technical problems that just shouldn't have happened in the hands of a skilled director, producer and editor. When kids below the age of ten will tell you within five-minutes--"This movie is boring", then you can say accurately never have so many dollars been wasted so badly so that so many viewers can eject this disc so quickly. Revised my rating from one star to none.

How is this possible?

[stableladyhawke-19141 · 1/10 · 6 September 2018]

I love animal films and especially horse films. This is the worse film I have ever endured. The writing was a list of empty platitudes and the acting was mostly not. The horsemanship was terrible. I really am amazed that time and effort went into producing this film.

Did they even try?

[lavalampluva · 1/10 · 16 December 2021]

The low budget is evident. They had such a great idea for a story line, cliché, but doable.

Did they even try to cast decent actors for the roles? It felt like the producers just hired their relatives and friends.

Horrendous Acting! Worst Movie you can imagine!

[general-240-325314 · 1/10 · 17 February 2020]

This has got to be one of the top three worst movies I have ever seen. It makes "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" seem like an Oscar contender. "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)" is a step up from "Wildfire: The Arabian Heart."

Acting: There is no acting ability in this. The characters are flat and do not seem natural in the least. It is as if they never rehearsed this and were just reading their lines. The responses seemed contrived and had no emotion or feeling of any kind.

Video Effects: Incredibly poor use of transitions. They had long swipes that took maybe three seconds to go all the way across the screen. Some cross-fades had the same music playing in the new scene while people were talking. Lots of cross-fades were used when a simple cut would have been sufficient.

Audio: The sound quality was dismal. The actor's voices would just fade out as they walked away from the microphone. I'm guessing they were using the built-in microphone on an inexpensive video camera. Sometimes the audio was distorted, too quiet, or sounded like they were talking in an enclosed area like a shower stall. The music seemed to play at odd and random times and usually didn't make any sense.

Video: This looks like it was filmed with an SD camcorder. They even showed a Sony DCR-TRV720 camcorder. Side note: the kid filming the girl would hold it up for a second, like he was recording, but never looked in the viewfinder and just immediately put it back down. The angles often times didn't make any sense. They would just cut away at random times and sometimes people would show up without any explanation of who they were or why they were there.

Story: I kept thinking that the payoff might be the big horse race. I won't mention why I was disappointed because I want people to read this and not skip it for containing any information that would give away the plot.

Seriously, do NOT watch this movie. I am still struggling to get back the brain cells I lost from watching this. The best part of this was reading the reviews after we watched the movie. I have never laughed so hard reading any reviews in my life. I loved the one review that ended with "The horse was pretty." I concur with that and since you rarely see any horses in this movie there should not be any reason to watch it because of that.

The low production costs are evident

[jjuergen · 10/10 · 14 September 2010]

Overall the story is good, and the plot is believable, but other than that it seems to have been produced by amateurs. Writing was horrible at best.

Acting is well, obviously pushed. Who played Lindsay's brother. Really? That's the best they could have done? And her mother? I am guessing she has zero acting history. Chemistry was not there.

But with a low budget you rarely get quality talent. In some of the scenes I don't think they even used a sound engineer. The echo and background noises are right there.

I wanted to write a better review, but just couldn't lie.

gre "family values movie"

[mnbobman · 8/10 · 13 October 2010]

wow..somebody doesn't like family movies or has a personal problem. This is a great little movie. Something my whole family can watch and a movie that touches on issues my children are dealing with. the story really surprises you. i never saw it coming. i admit Im bias toward horses and beautiful scenery. beautifully filmed movie that I tell all my friends and neighbors about because like me.. there tired of the PG-13 stuff. last but not least..really GREAT soundtrack. Thrilled to find out that the soundtrack is being released. My family gets the movie and I get the CD! hope these folks do more of this because we REALLY deed it!!! GOOD JOB

wow this was really neat

[larrypetemoe · 10/10 · 2 September 2010]

Okay first what other movie was Logan actor from???

I got the movie to see while on a family trip because I love horses and its a horse movie. It seemed just like any other DVD or TV movie so not really sure what these other people are watching but they must be old people or have hearing issues since they both talked about sound things.

Okay I am 15 in Canada and would love to be in a movie and this movie is the best two of my friends have seen it and they agree.

Umm it looked like Canada so I think it was made here but not sure what town the movie is simple and thats good but there was the twist about Wildfire and I am not sure I liked that because it would have been nice to see the Arabian win even though they really are show horses.

Review good movie not for old people or those with hearing issues and this movie probably was made by Disney.

we liked it... not sure what others expected

[wmatt25 · 10/10 · 26 July 2013]

I am not a movie person other then I watch them and my girls liked and I thought it was well worth the $5.00 at Walmart, bought worst for more money.

It was kid friendly with no bad language or inappropriate scenes. Sure was a green a lush state they filmed it in and actually great to see kids that are more normal in personality and looks.

I thought some of the kid actors looked familiar and thats why I came on IMDb so we could find other movies with them but this most of been the only movie they were in.

Oh another thing we really liked the music but cant seem to find it any where which is a shame so if anyone does know it would be great to share it.

good messages with heart...the horse is majestic and heavenly....superb reflection of te human/ animal bond

[fellabelliongracefull · 10/10 · 26 March 2022]

One of the greatest things to celebrate and cherish is the ethereal bond between animals and human beings...this film does just that..in a touching way...establishing ethics and compassion for animal lives in young people is not a bad idea...films like this are needed. I was watching Slapshot as a kid of eleven...i have watched my fair share of movies with the f word used before and after the f word...i am no Saint by far...but we should cherish the messages films like this one send into this world...wisdom and the appreciation for empathy such films send to our minds and hearts...and to the minds and hearts of kids...all of us. It might be wise to never lose track of the value and importance of these kinds of films ...empathy for instance is a value we can certainly use more of in this weary world we humans have made...empathy for each other and empathy for animals is badly lacking...it might be wise to value each film like this one.