Metacritic reviews

It's not really either an animal or a kids' film but rather a young adult drama that rings emotionally true.

It is purely and fearlessly a girl-and-her-horse movie that isn't trying to be all things for all audiences.

So those seeking a softer approach to the realities of both child- and animal-rearing should search elsewhere. The rest of us, meanwhile, are free to enjoy a well-made family drama pitched to young adults that's honest, tough and surprisingly engaging.

As for our heroine (Lohman), her archetypal struggle with crusty Pa (uncrusty Tim McGraw) feels attitude-heavy and life-lesson-light.

Give Flicka credit for one thing: It stays on message. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of a Wyoming mountain range--a view this time unobstructed by the gay cowboys who so alarm family audiences--the film offers up fantasy footage for every strong-willed girl who ever straddled a saddle, and little more.

One casting wild card is the country singer Tim McGraw, and he's very solid in the role of Katie's horse-rancher dad, the kind of guy whose hard-headedness can't mask the size of his heart.

An entertainingly ridiculous update of Mary O’Hara’s 1941 children’s novel, “My Friend Flicka.”

A thoroughly uninspiring drama that ultimately buckles under Michael Mayer's weighty direction.

A modernized version of that great sentimental horse movie, 1943's "My Friend Flicka," and it comes with the shiny trappings, high professionalism and glamorous accessories you might expect...Something is missing though.

It takes a pristine gift for mediocrity to ruin Mary O'Hara’s muscular children's novel about a wild boy and his wild horse, but director Michael Mayer has brought off the massacre with aplomb.