War Horse Review

Steven Spielberg has been in the movie industry for more than three decades. He has touched all different types of genres ranging from family films, horror, adventure, science fiction and war. His latest film “War Horse” is a combination of wartime used as a backdrop and infusing a sweet, sentimental story of a “magic horse” that does whatever it can to survive. So the question becomes, “does it work?” Sadly, it becomes what I just described as, overwrought, sentimental and just the simplest of trite Spielberg has ever made. Not that there are bad elements to the film as it does have some basics of a story going on, but it’s weighted down by Spielberg’s direction and just a terrible screenplay that it defies any realism Spielberg creates with the wartime setting. It tries to be an example of what Spielberg did with his family films of using sweet story telling that he doesn’t realize it does not mix well when we don’t have any characters to sympathize with. Sure, we have a horse, but that’s what it is, just a horse that goes through different people’s lives during World War I and it’s supposed to have an effect on all of them. War Horse, if anything, is just contrived.

       Our film starts out in England right before World War I starts and we see a young boy farmer name Albert who starts to become interested in a horse his father bought at an auction whom he names “Joey”. He starts to love the horse more than anything and does everything he can to provide for it and give it the best living conditions as possible. Soon however England is at War with Germany and Joey is recruited in the army but the boy promises to find Joey as soon as he becomes old enough to join the army. The film then shifts through Joey’s perspective as we see him meet different people as the war rages on and as new owners meet him and is killed at the expense of protecting Joey. The film is like a mix mash of Forrest Gump but with a horse and not that the idea itself isn’t good, but it’s just too thin of a plot follow with.

       The main problem the film suffers from is that there are no characters to care for. Joey is just a horse who escapes death by mere dumb luck. The movie makes itself out to be that the horse is magical and can do things no other horse can. But why is that? The film doesn’t explain itself and expects the audience to take it in and hope for the best, but there are too many instances where this horse needs an explanation on why we should care for it, other than that it’s a horse. Even the human characters are given little to no depth. Albert who is our main character is just some farm boy who really, really loves his horse. But,” why should I care?” Also, the other human characters Joey meets are small and obscure and therefore don’t mean anything to the story. They are in the film for about twenty or so minutes and are forgotten and are shifted to a new character. And the pacing of the film is unbearable. It clocks in about almost near the two-and a half hour mark that it starts to become incredibly dull and you just end up waiting for it to be over soon. I have no problems with a film’s length if it can keep a good enough pacing to not make me feel it’s becoming dull. This film doesn’t have good enough pacing to warrant the time length.

      However, the script is the main reason why the film fails. Spielberg is a fantastic director; there is no doubt about that. He can take an okay script and turn it into something far greater than it seems. Yet, it feels Spielberg is just revisiting all the same, familiar tropes he’s done in his past movies that were done better. Yet, the the film is just dictated by the overuse of John William’s score which has to be one of the most manipulated uses of a score I’ve ever heard. Its so loud and pompous that it makes you realize how bad the story would be without the use of a good score to make you care for something that really is nothing to care for. It’s something Spielberg is better than and that’s why I feel this as much as his fault as the scripts fault. Yet, there are some good elements to this. There is one great scene in where a German and a British soldier put aside their differences to help Joey out of a rough situation that is hard to watch. That scene is something Spielberg is good at where he takes unique concepts and risky ideas and turns them great. The cinematography is pretty amazing to look at as Spielberg has been using the same cinematographer (Janusz Kaminski) on all of his films since Schindler’s List. He definitely elevates this bad film to good standards as it is gorgeous to look at and does have moments when it’s breathtaking especially in a battle sequence taken place in No Man’s Land. Spielberg knows how to create a visceral experience when dealing with war battle scenes, and they are impressive and worth the watch, but it’s pretty much a backdrop for the main story and the battle sequences are far and few in between.

I can’t recommend people to watch this film unless you love horses; then you will be swept away by its inspiration of a horse surviving these difficult trials and hardships and seeing a young boy trying to reclaim his horse. But for the rest of us in general, it’s not worth the watch unless you have any little interest in it. It pains me to see a badly made Spielberg film, yet, I feel this is a good wake-up call to him so he can stop doing these types of films and be more unique as a director. “It’s time to move on Mr. Spielberg.”

D+ by Amritpal Rai