War Horse is a tough film to review. It certainly isn't the best film in the world and yet I find myself often defending it to my friends. Maybe I just don't agree with the reasons they don't like it...or maybe I'm just being fussy in my old age. Either way, War Horse is definitely a mixed bag.
Joey is a special horse (as we are reminded constantly) and develops an immediate bond with young English farm boy, Albert Narracott (Jeremy Levine's debut performance). But the farm is destitute and Mr. Narracott is forced to sell Joey to the English army on the eve of World War I. Little Albert is shattered and swears he'll see his horse again. What follows is the episodic adventures of Joey as he navigates his way through war torn Europe and hopefully back to Albert.
A problem with most episodic movies is that they are full of a lot of short little stories, and if some of these episodes aren't strong, it can drag down the whole movie. I definitely think this is the case of War Horse. Some of the stories are terrific, especially the World War I excerpts, such as when Joey serves as the cavalry mount of dashing British Captain Nichols (Thor's Tom Hiddleston channeling a killer T.E. Lawrence vibe) and when he is forced to pull literally tons of heavy artillery up a steep slope to their firing positions. These sequences are truly superb and depict some of the best representations of World War I that I have seen. But then we also have a story where Joey becomes the pet of a precocious little French girl (Celine Buckins), that I suppose is sort of cute, but completely drags the momentum of the movie down.
The other major complaint about the movie, and one that I agree with, is that it tends to be overly sentimental. Spielberg has always worn his heart on his sleeve as a filmmaker and I admire the fact that he doesn't restrain his emotional side, but he goes overboard here, especially in the last act. Everything following the superb barbed wire scene right up to the sunset finale is just thick, thick syrup - and too much for me to handle without rolling my eyes. It's just started to be a bit too much.
But I've also heard a lot of people complaining that the movie is just unrealistic. It bothered them that with hundreds of thousands men being slaughtered, why does everyone care so much about a horse? It's just a horse! I don't think that is the right way to look at the movie. War Horse isn't realistic. It's a fable and the horse is a metaphor, a symbol of an earlier, simpler time - when people were tied to their land, and when there was a certain nobility and chivalry in combat, before the world was violently dragged into the modern world by the horrors of mechanized warfare. World War I was the transition to modern war and that transition is handled brilliantly by Spielberg and Company. The characters in the film yearn for the world of yesteryear, for a happier time before barbed wire, mustard gas, and trenchfoot. It makes sense that everyone in the film is touched by Joey. He is a symbol of everything they have lost.
Overall, I think the movie's greatest strength is how old fashioned it is (which is ironic because I think its greatest weakness is how old fashioned its sentimentality is!). I think this is Spielberg's John Ford film. Truly, I think if John Ford had made War Horse in 1948, it would have been remarkably similar to what we ended up with 2011. It's the classic style of the filmmaking, and it's the way the camera sets the characters against the landscape, tying them intrinsically to the earth. I admired that. There is actually a lot to admire about War Horse. If the story had been just a bit tighter, and if the attempts to yank on our tear ducts had just been a bit more subtle...well, we would have had something terrific.
MVP:
Janusz Kaminski, Spielberg's Director of Photography, is the clear MVP here. He's brilliant with the camera, both with his framing, and his great use of filters and lighting. He gets the MVP for two moments in particular - the first is an insane sunset at the end of the film, a return to the English farm set against a blood red sky. At first, I grumbled, because I thought, "why did they use CGI for that sunset??" Except then I read that it was actually a real sunset and that the colors in that part of England are that insanely vibrant. It's a heck of a great shot. But my favorite shot is actually earlier in the film, when Joey makes a dash through the trenches. We are treated to a superb tracking shot, the camera keeping just ahead of Joey as he twists and turns, men toppling to each side, explosions filling the air above him. It's a brilliant shot and I'm not quite sure how they did it. Kaminski is the Man!
BEST LINE:
Geordie: How are things in yonder trench?
German: Delightful. We read. We knit sweaters. We train our rats to perform circus tricks.
TRIVIA:
Fourteen horses played Joey in the film. The primary acting horse, Finder, also played Sea Biscuit.
