December 31, 2011

Movie Review: War Horse

War Horse is the Gone With the Wind of horses, both in melodrama and length. Okay, it's not really four hours long - it just feels like it. There's even an, "As god is my witness..." line when the soldier takes Albert's horse for war duty and says, "Man to man, I swear I'll bring him back to you..." and swelling music plays in the background. Oh, please.
Nothing in this story rings true - not necessarily a requirement for a good movie, but nice if nothing else is working.
Albert, the main character, is very one-dimensional but...man, he's the king of horse whisperers. Not very creative, tho, when it comes to naming his horse. Joey? Really? You couldn't think of something better than Joey? Okay, well, I guess Trigger was taken.
Here are a few other nits to pick: 

1. Joey and Albert plowing a field (the size of Rhode Island) full of scrub and rocks, and turning it into rich, loamy soil.
2. The little French girl (with the laughingly phony accent) getting on Joey and riding like a steeplechase champion even tho she's never been on a horse in her life.
4. The grandfather traveling for three days and three nights to buy a horse he only thinks might be Joey to pay homage to his dead granddaughter (the steeplechase champion). Oops  sorry, that's a spoiler, but I promise you won't miss her.
5. Albert blinded by a gas explosion during the war and in the next scene, voila! he can see again.
You're probably getting the idea here so I'll quit ruining it for you.
One and a half stars out of five for War Horse. And those are for the cinematography.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no. Husband wants to see this one. The premise alone is enough to send me around the bend and now you've confirmed that I will spend the entire movie with my legs crossed and engaged in my tell-tale oh-gawd-I-am-so-bored-I-could-scream foot shake. I'm just going to have to hold out. Eventually it will show up in our Netflix queue and I can go take some photographs while he indulges himself in the schmaltz.

Samantha Hoffman said...

Blue Lyon:
One of the people in our group left three times during the movie, and was gone for long stretches. I thought she had a gastrointestinal issue but turns out she was just bored out of her skull. Had I known...