War Horse Movie Blurb by Shale December 25, 2011 This is one of those epic movies that follow the protagonist thru many episodes of a life story. The protagonist is Joey, a horse. The movie opens at his birth in a field, in a beautiful, pastoral British countryside, being watched from afar by Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Albert takes an interest in the young colt and tries to befriend it with apples. Later Albert's father (Peter Mullen) who drinks a bit, overbids for the horse at auction. His wife (Emily Watson) is furious but Albert is delighted and soon there is a special bond between a boy and his horse. Albert & Joey Unfortunately, dad about sold the farm to buy the horse and as often happens with farmers, misfortune hits. With their farm about to go into foreclosure, dad sells the horse to the British Army as WWI breaks out. Joey is Sold to the Army The officer procuring Joey is sympathetic to Albert's loss and vows to take good care of Joey. But, WWI was brutal, vacillating from modern destructive machinery to soldiers with bayonets fighting like medieval combatants. And, in 1914 they still had a cavalry that charged into the jaws of death. Cavalry Charge I won't go into all the experiences and travails of Joey and Albert in this epic story. But it is a very visual Steven Spielberg movie that to me was reminiscent of movies of my past. Altho it is a period setting, the movie itself had a 1940s feel to it, yet everything is fresh. The subject is war and there are some dreadful scenes of the actual carnage, of trench warfare and charging into machine gun fire, but very little actual killing. Cavalry horses charging with riders in one scene and in the next, horses running wild without riders. You know what happened you didn't have to see it. There are other scenes with blocked views of the actual killing that are so amazingly shot they are distracting. Again, the kind of filmmaking that we saw in the '40s. Even the ending reminds me of Technicolor on a matte painting. I really enjoyed this movie.
War Horse is an amazing, brilliant movie that was filmed in a profound way that brought out the vibrant colors of the time period. It's definitely in favor of animal rights and in my opinion it shows how human beings were treated like animals and were forced to work just like the millions of horses that were brought over there. There is very little difference between drafting someone to serve in an army against their will and slavery. This film attempted to present the viewers with the unnecessary nature of war and how World War I and every other war is always immoral, in every case.
Bugging me all throughout this movie was a nagging feeling there was just something missing. It should have been a brilliant film rather than just a good film
