War Horse could be one of the worst examples I have ever seen of a director doing the wrong picture at the wrong time. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I got sick of this kind of movie in the 1990′s.
Joey is a horse born to into a world on the brink of World War I. We follow his journey as he encounters people from both sides of the war, loses friends and ultimately tries to find his way back to his most beloved owner, the young Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine).
So this is the kind of movie I would have expected director Steven Spielberg making twenty years ago. I mean, everybody else was at the time. I have never cared for the silent animal story where the animal alone is supposed to be endearing enough to keep the film going, and here it’s done almost as bad as I’ve ever seen it. We are given numerous characters throughout the film but we are never given enough time to care about any of them, save Albert to an extent. At the same time, most of the film focuses on each of the people that Joey meets, thus not giving the horse all that much time to be endearing. It really feels like the filmmakers just want you to like the horse because, “Hey, it’s a horse. You like horses, right?” And that’s just not enough to sell it for me. After all was said and done I just did not care about a single character in the film, human or animal.
The script for this was a complete mess. The first half hour was utterly confusing for me because characters were constantly changing their attitudes about everything. For instance, there’s a man who buys the horse at an auction because he thinks it’s a “special” horse. Moments later we see him not giving two cares about the horse and acting as if he hadn’t bought it for a reason. This is not the only character that does this, and every time it’s bizarre. It’s not nearly as bizarre as the fact that the first half hour also seems to try to sell the movie as a kids’ film, when the movie very much deserves its PG-13 rating. There’s a goose chasing people around for comic relief that really got on my nerves the moment it first showed up and every time after that. Every single character is one-dimensional at best and none of them are very good actors. This can be said especially of this one irritating little girl who comes along at one point. I don’t know who the girl is but the person who cast her should have been fired on the spot.
I think the strangest part of it all though was how the film portrayed the war itself. We see both the English and the German sides of the war and for the most part both of them have equal sympathy. I’m okay with this for the most part except I couldn’t stop thinking about how most of the German soldiers, not fifteen years later, would become Nazis. What’s even more bizarre is how during a scene in which the English troops go through with a surprise attack on a German camp, the music and the cinematography led me to believe the film wanted me to feel sorry for the Germans for being attacked. It was just really awkward, especially when this is the same director who did the Indiana Jones films and Schindler’s List. There is however one great scene between the two camps that was the one glimmering moment of the film that got me interested. But for the most part I was usually either irritated or bored out of my mind.
While there is some fantastic cinematography and a really great score, War Horse is just an awful example of the kind of movie it’s trying to be. It can’t decide on an age group and the message is never portrayed well on screen. It’s just a generic piece of garbage that is far too graphic to bring kids to and far too long for just about anybody to enjoy.
Final Verdict: 