The 2002 family animation Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron told the tale of a noble stallion’s battle to stay free in the 19th-century old west. Now comes a sequel in which the truly wild creature is not a horse but a 12-year-old girl with a stubborn streak. She is Lucky (voiced by Isabela Merced), whom little kids may recognise from the Netflix spin-off series. This film is a sort-of origin story to the show, an account of how Lucky and Spirit the stallion meet. It’s a sweet, undemanding film that, despite the title, is tamer than a sedated bunny. That said, the four-year-old I watched with spontaneously yelped “this is the best!” 20 minutes in. So really, what do I know?

Lucky is travelling on a train when she first claps eyes on Spirit galloping across the prairie with his herd. After years living with her grandpa – and wreaking havoc on his plans to become governor, with her unladylike ways – Lucky is travelling out west to live with her widowed dad, Jim (Jake Gyllenhaal), who runs the family railroad business. She spies Spirit again in the town’s corral, captured by a vicious wrangler who is attempting to break him. Where the wrangler fails with brute force, Lucky succeeds with a good heart and a bucket of apples.

Some of the best scenes are with Lucky and her two new pals, Abigail (Mckenna Grace) and Prue (Marsai Martin), careening down canyons and leaping across mountain ridges to save Spirit and his herd from being transported north. The girl-power message works fine, but the original movie’s lesson about wildness being the true nature of animals is gone. Spirit here is a reduced beast, much less distinctive. When the first film came out, it was noted that Spirit lacked the anatomical necessaries of a stallion. With this sequel, he is deprived even of the Matt Damon-voiced interior monologue. Still, at least this time around there are no Bryan Adams power ballads.

• Spirit Untamed is released on 30 July in cinemas.