War Horse: Movie Review

Steven Spielberg is not horsing around with this one; since Saving Private Ryan back long ago in 1998, you can hear him crying out “I need another Oscar”. Presumably longing for that gilded statuette, Spielberg tried to construct a romantic, over passionate and tear inducing film adaptation of a fictional novel. His effort shows because every time we were cued to feel something, pain, compassion, fear etc. I feel that directorial pause on a supposedly emotive scene.

The War horse follows the story of a horse named Joey in an English farm, right from its birth to his involvement in World War 1. Right before the war a young Albert Narracott fell in love with the horse and was fortunate enough to raise him. Albert was played by Jeremy Irvine, an actor who was specifically cast based on his innocent looks.

 In the first third of the movie, Spielberg had us slogging through the Naracott family debt problems and farming troubles. He tried to put a dramatic spin to it all, but as much respect as I have for farming, come on! 45 minutes?

When the war broke out, Joey was sold to the British cavalry to march against the Germans. Like in the movie the Red Violin, we see the object change hands between British officers, German infantry deserters, French grape farmers, German frontline forces and the back again with the British army. I admit this was the highlight of the movie for me.

However, notice that I used the word object, because I felt that with the exception of the Joey’s friendship with a black stallion especially during the slave driving scene, the horse did not play a character at all, merely a prop, a violin. In all other scenes, the human owners take centre stage, where you can see Spielberg trying to cram in whole life stories at times.

One last nagging item is Spielberg’s refusal to show the moment where a soldier gets shot and dies. Various camera or editing tricks were used to cover it up. Being a war movie, it strikes as odd in today’s world but it is a great way to introduce war and death to young children.

To be fair, despite my negative comments, War Horse is not a bad watch. The movie is decent and a serious contender at the Oscars. It seems that Nevertheless, I wished they trimmed out the excessive soppiness from the front end of the movie and made it snappier throughout all scenes. 8/10.