Grade: B

Verdict: Check your mind at the door and just enjoy Aragorn -- I mean, Viggo Mortensen -- in a rousing, old-fashioned desert adventure. His horse ain't bad either.

You don't have to be crazy about horses or Viggo Mortensen to enjoy the spirited "Hidalgo." But it probably helps.

The movie certainly has its problems, but they're outweighed by the simple pleasures of a picture that takes its cue equally from old-fashioned adventures like "Gunga Din" and newfangled ones like "The Mummy."

The story is very loosely based on a 19th-century cowboy named Frank T. Hopkins (Mortensen). When we first meet him, he and his splendiferous, boldly painted Spanish mustang, Hidalgo (technically, a skewbald pinto), are racing past a smug Englishman, in jodhpurs on his fancy schmancy thoroughbred, to win a long-distance race.

Renowned for his prize-winning endurance riding, Hopkins has a day job as a dispatch rider for the U.S. cavalry. When he unwittingly delivers the missive that orders the tragic massacre at Wounded Knee, he quits; he's too sickened by the slaughter.

So Hopkins goes into showbiz -- and heavy-duty alcoholism. He signs up with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, where, his employer notes, he's usually so drunk that he can cross the country in 30 days "but can't find his way backstage."

Then Hopkins is invited by a wealthy sheik (Omar Sharif) to compete in the Ocean of Fire. It sounds like a Vegas magic act, but it's actually a centuries-old, 3,000-mile race across the Arabian peninsula. The Bedouin riders disdain Frank because he's an American and his horse is a mustang and therefore can't possibly compete with pure-blooded Arabians.

Bloodlines are an important theme beneath the movie's heroics and boys-adventure-book bravado. Frank is of mixed blood -- his mother was Native American -- and it takes going halfway around the world for him to reconcile himself with his dual heritage.

Still, blood-simple prejudice is only one obstacle. Some flashier, equal-opportunity ones include a plague of locusts, quicksand, deadly desert heat and a sandstorm that rivals "Bound for Glory's" unforgettable dust storm. However, the most disturbing scene is pretty basic: A hungry computer-generated-image cheetah chases a panicky, riderless horse into the desert and certain death.

Mortensen's Frank is part Harrison Ford in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," part gallant, aw-shucks Gary Cooper in "Meet John Doe," part race-sensitive Kevin Costner in "Dances With Wolves." After the incremental nobility of Aragorn in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, it's refreshing to see him with a bit of shameless dash and a definite twinkle in those celebrated blue eyes.

Director Joe Johnston piles on adventure after adventure -- sometimes ludicrously so. A mid-race rescue of Sharif's daughter not only seems too daunting for even someone with Frank's endurance record, it also has him riding into the bad guys' place disguised as an Arab -- and riding Hidalgo. This, after we've been told countless times that purebred Arabian steeds don't come two-tone.

Finally, we can find something nostalgic and romantic in this movie's version of the Mideast -- not today's bombs on buses or drive-by shootings but a "Lawrence of Arabia" world of camels and caravans.

And Hidalgo himself (played by T.J.) is a real find. More engaging than Gandalf's Shadowfax, lovelier than Seabiscuit, he could be the first equine star of the 21st century.