Movie: War Horse (2011)

War Horse poster

The movie War Horse seems like it wants to be more than it appears to be. The movie does a good job of showing   spectacular visuals. A significant portion of the movie is dedicated to the visuals of World War I and the   titular horse. It is a brightly colored movie, a nice departure from the typical drab colored war films that populate the film industry. However, all the nice visuals in the world don’t explain what exactly the film is about. It seems like the horse is a significant part the war, but it doesn’t want to be a war film. The movie is trying to pull heartstrings by showing the horse in a different environment, but the movie doesn’t explain why that horse is chosen to be in the middle of the war. It ruins what could be a decent movie. Without a clear plot, it doesn’t pull heartstrings or even resonate. It seems like a movie caught between two genres, a war movie and a tale of friendship. This is made worse when the movie fails to introduce a single human character for the audience to identify with. The movie suffers because I couldn’t identify with a horse. It needs to develop the human characters so a relationship with the horse is understandable. In the movie’s favor, the music lent itself well. It was well done and is better suited toward the friendship story aspect of the film rather than the war aspect of the film. Once this film decides what it wants to be, it will be better.

“Follows a young man named Albert and his horse, Joey, and how their bond is broken when Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to the trenches of World War One. Despite being too young to enlist, Albert heads to France to save his friend.”

  • Director: Steven Spielberg
  • Writer: Lee Hall, Richard Curtis
  • Release Date: 28 December 2011 (USA)
  • Country: UK / USA
  • Language: English
  • Genre: War
  • Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, David Thewlis, Emily Watson, Toby Kebbell, Eddie Marsan, David Kross, Peter Mullan, Jeremy Irvine, Johnny Harris, Geoff Bell, Niels Arestrup, Robert Emms, Rainer Bock, David Dencik

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