Horses are awesome. I mean awesome in the traditional sense of awe-inspiring. If you've ever stood next to a really massive horse you'll know what I mean. Through the ages I would say it's pretty clear everyone would agree with that statement. They are the animal of choice for any manual labor we are too lazy or weak to do. We don't just show out appreciation by giving them apples and sugar cubes though, we also make horse related media that makes everyone cry once every 3 years. This time round it falls to the duel talents of Steven Spielberg and Michael Morpurgo to show their love of horses. Is it self-gratifying nonsense or a horse-based wonder?
A drunkard of a Dad (Peter Mullan) who has just moved onto some new but pretty rubbish farming land with his son and wife is off to the local animal auction to get a big sturdy plowing horse. However when he gets there he spies a horse that he has a good feeling about. Despite the strong discouragement from his surrounding pals, he enters a bidding war with the local Richie Rich (David Thewlis) and ends up spending far too much on a horse that doesn't really fit his needs. When he takes the horse home his wife (Emily Watson) isn't best pleased on the other hand his son (newbie Jeremy Irvine) is over the moon and takes it upon himself to raise the horse into the ultimate plow-tugging machine. One or two horse montages later, War is declared and the horse is sold to a high ranking general (Tom Hiddleston) what follows is a Black Beauty style game of hot-potato-horse as he is passed from owner to owner and has plenty of adventures and life lessons along the way. It's a set-up that allows for lots of different situations, characters and scenes that mean you are never even given a chance to get bored but conversely never really given much of an insight into any of the characters. Having said that they do a decent job of cramming lots of information into very short scenes but never making it feel like Inception levels of story cramming.
There are some surprisingly obnoxious elements to War Horse. This may sound silly but the horse who plays the titular protagonist is a really hammy actor. I know that it's impressive they got a horse to do all the stuff that it indeed achieved but in a film that is so serious and hard-hitting in some places, to have the kind of ridiculous over-the-top animal acting better suited to a talking animal film like Babe completely breaks the reality they create making some of the more emotional scenes come across quite comically. If you were reading the book any of the very unrealistic things the horse did you could style out in your head and as for the stage play, well theatre can be taken much less literally so you can have stranger elements and it won't come across as stupidly. These unreal moments weren't only attached to the animals though. The ending with it's saccharine skylike clearly lifted directly out of the play looked impressively ridiculous.
Talking of the more ridiculous and obvious elements of the film inevitably leads to the terribly over-the-top score from John Williams. It tells us to feel sad, happy and triumphant never allowing the film to have it's subtler moments as they must always be soaked up in obvious musical emotions that, much like the animals, don't want the film to be quietly emotional but clearly stated at all times.
Expectations are important if you plan to see this film. It's charming and occasionally epic and might just squeeze a few tears out of you (or like the girl sitting across from me in the cinema make you sob in a hilarious fashion). It's got something for everyone meaning you'll certainly enjoy it and it's in no way hard work. It will absorb you and your time will be well spent. All that being said it's intensely cliche ridden, exceedingly obvious and you have probably seen a film just like this one at least 3 times before. However I can't deny that I really enjoyed myself and got everything I expected to get out of this film. Like Mission Impossible 4, it meets expectations and does what it needs to do whilst being pretty epic and cool about it, however if you are looking for Schindler's List meets E.T. meets Saving Private Ryan, you best keep searching.
JO
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