Proving that truth is often greater than fiction, the handsome production of Seabiscuit offers a healthy alternative to Hollywood's staple diet of mayhem. With superior production values at his disposal, writer-director Gary Ross () is a bit too reverent towards Laura Hillenbrand's captivating , unnecessarily using archival material--and David McCullough's narration--to pay Ken-Burns-like tribute to Hillenbrand's acclaimed history of the knobbly-kneed thoroughbred who "came from behind" in the late 1930s to win the hearts of Depression-weary Americans. That caveat aside, Ross's adaptation retains much of the horse-and-human heroism that Hillenbrand so effectively conveyed; this is a classically styled "legend" movie like The Natural, which was also heightened by a lushly sentimental Randy Newman . Led by Tobey Maguire as Seabiscuit's hard-luck jockey, the film's first-rate cast is uniformly excellent, including William H Macy as a wacky trackside announcer who fills this earnest film with a much-needed spirit of fun. --Jeff Shannon