One of my colleagues saw it last night, and he’s just been telling me about it. His review was very consistent with Tom Tildrum’s. Plus, he said:It’s WAY too long!
Without Spoiling, how gruesome and horrible are the horse battle scenes? Is this the type of movie where you’re sad in the middle but come away feeling pretty uplifted at the end?
As others said earlier, I’d rather not pay for a ticket if this is one long bloody, simulated slaughter of horses. Especially right after Christmas, I’d like to keep a little holiday cheer into the New Year.
I’ve seen documentaries on Napoleonic style warfare. Horses didn’t have the luxury of ducking and running for cover. Obviously a lot of them died in battles for centuries. Sadly WWI still used a lot of old, outdated war tactics and that really didn’t work out well when the other guys had machine guns & modern artillery.
I liked it. And while the scenes of the horses sent into battle were brutal,
the very first scene in which Joey (the principal equine protagonist) goes into battle is one in which mounted British officers charge an encampment of Germans while waving swords about. The Brits are promptly cut down by machine gun fire, demonstrating that that style of warfare is obsolete. From then on, the horses do their duty pulling ambulance carriages, and later artillery carriages. And the brutality isn’t limited to the horses. By our count, aside from Albert (the principal human protagonist), every person who befriended that horse died. He was something of a four-legged angel of death.
I particularly liked the shots of the horse running down trenches, which were nicely filmed.
That’s a valid criticism, but I will say that the “resolution” and “lack of character growth” issues are equally valid for the book as well and wasn’t likely to change unless there was a complete re-working of the story.
And I wouldn’t call it “emotionally dead”, but that’s probably because I like horses. IMHO, it’s no more emotionally dead than your standard action flick, with their predictable resolutions and lack of character growth.
That’s a good point. If you appreciate fine horseflesh, this movie does provide a lot to enjoy.
Not bad. There are a couple of panoramic shots that show a lot of dead horses, and a few quick shots of horses falling in battle, but with little gore. There are more scenes of horses being brutally overworked.
I found the violence rather less than I expected. In the entire movie only one horse is dies on screen and it isn’t in a moment of violence. All other dead horses are shown after the fact.
Humans die much more on screen but it is bloodless PG death of gunshots and people falling down. There is almost no blood in the movie and definitely no gore.
What surprised me is how little the horses are mistreated out of malice. Nobody is shown (on either side of the war) being cruel simply for the sake of being cruel. The worst of it is the horses being treated as tools of war, and sometimes you have to break tools towards a larger goal (in that sense the people aren’t treated much better).
I like that they didn’t make the horses into people. The main horse is perhaps a little too smart, but there are no horsey double takes.
Story is really thin. Mostly just a gimmick for surveying various aspects of a very pointless war. In that sense it kind of reminded me of The Winds of War with Robert Mitchum being replaced by a horse.
We went to see it Christmas day and I am glad I bought tickets ahead of time. The theater was packed and NOT with 12 yr. old girls. I liked the scenery and most of the movie. Beginning and end were a tad slow but the rest makes up for it.
It is a glimpse into what happened during the war to the people and horses involved. But well filmed.
SWMBO and I just got back from seeing it. It made her cry, but then she cries at Hallmark commercials. It was a good movie, not a great one. I certainly don’t consider the admission wasted.
IMNSHO, the scenes with Emilie, the granddaughter, were the best. She’s played by a charming and talented young woman named Celine Buckens, and I predict great things for her in the future.
IMO, not very gruesome at all. After reading Equipoise’s comments on it, I was expecting it to be a bloodbath. It’s nothing of the sort, and I think it does the film a bit of a disservice to say:
There’s one scene about 3/4 through that’s a bit hard to watch, but it’s *nothing *like that quote.
So it is NOT a realistic view of WWI?
it is a realistic view of the resulst of WWI, but most of the violence happens off screen (especially where horses are involved) and there is no gore. In the entire course of the movie exactly one horse is shown dying on screen and I believe only one horse is specifically presented as being killed (though the camera pans away for it). There are several scenes that show plenty of already dead horses.
Lots of implied violence and it in no way sells short how brutal the war was on horses (one line highlighted it at the end when someone says there are no vets around because they’re pretty much out of horses).
Thank you all for the reviews. I’ve always been interested in WWI, but dislike the genre of movies I call “WWI Weepies.” Just a matter of taste.
BTW, if you’ve seen A Very Long Engagement, the image of the horse carcass blasted into the tree is from an actual war photo.
There’s one scene about 3/4 through that’s a bit hard to watch, but it’s *nothing *like that quote.
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I had spoilered my quote, and you cut out the next line where I said:
[QUOTE=Equipoise]
Ok, maybe not wall-to-wall, but it seemed that way to me. Yes there are several wuzzy scenes but the horse’s horror was what sticks with me. I’ve had nightmares about the barbed wire scene.
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I was talking about what it was like for ME. Remembering only the horror of horses getting hurt was MY experience, I don’t care what kind of disservice it does to the movie. I think you and others are minimizing the amount of horror (saying the barbed wire scene is “a bit hard to watch” for instance) but each to their own. If my overreaction is proven wrong to you or anyone when you actually see the movie, then I’ll have caused a sigh of relief, not a disservice.
Still, for ME, the scenes I’ll remember most are the horses being beaten, tortured, abused, hurt and killed scenes.
I just saw this.
Did Spielberg even leave the studio backlot? Visually this movie was one of the most artificial and boring things I’ve ever seen. Story-wise it was flat and cliche. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.
I did notice that the clouds never moved.
I think that look was intentional, a throwback/homage to the studio horsey films of the 40’s, which would also explain why it’s a bloodless war.
I saw it yesterday. I went into the theatre expercting to bawl through the whole thing, to be blown away with emotion, as was the friend I went with.
We both enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as we were expecting. It seemed flat to me. Certainly there were parts that were beautifully filmed, and a couple parts did bring a tear to my eye the run thru the trenche and barbed wire especially, but even that… he came out with FAR fewer injuries than he would have actually had. Have you ever SEEN a horse that tangled with barbed wire? .
All in all it reminded me of a Disney cartoon-which, nothing wrong with that if that’s what you are going to see. I felt it was over-sanitized as a realistic portrait of WWI.
This article refers to real War Horses in WWI. Interesting true story.
I thought it was a good movie, not great but the fact it was originally a children’s book showed. That and there is an unfortunate paucity of WWI films. Hope that changes with the Centennial coming up
I saw a trailer for it the other day (at a showing of The Artist - which was excellent BTW) - this was, stupidly for me, my first realisation that the War Horse movie was not a filmed adaptation of the stage show - I’d have loved that, but live action, not so much.