REVIEW: War Horse (12A)

I tend to be a blubber, I cry at movies - all sorts of movies. I always cry at the end of West Side Story and, however bizarre it may seem, Scott of the Antarctic. In the past year, have shed a tear or two at both Up! and Toy Story 3. So, having read reviews and notice tweets about War Horse I went prepared, expecting to sob at regular intervals. Sadly, though less embarrassingly, I didn't feel close to tears during the movie, not even a choking feel in my throat. Maybe I'm heartless, maybe I find it hard to empathise with a horse, or maybe the movie isn't quite as good, not emotionally manipulative, as has been made out in the publicity and reviews.



The movie looks amazing. The pre-First World War Devon village is completely believable, as are the conditions the soldiers have to endure in the trenches. Some have suggested that the war scenes are as graphic as Saving Private Ryan - maybe. Certainly it shows the squalor and suffering, something few today can truly imagine. (At least, on the First World War, soldiers generally killed other soldiers, unlike today).

The movie, for all its great cinematography, has its flaws. At the centre of the movie is what should have been a truly touching moment on No Man's Land but, briefly, Spielberg loses his touch and forgets that this is cinema - the script seems awkward and it feels more like second-rate theatre, just projected very tall.

I'm a big fan of John Williams' movie score and this score is always well-judged and does it best to tug at the heart-strings, but, unfortunately, seems to be more of an undergraduate exercise in composing in the style of Vaughan Williams. John Williams' best scores are when he embraces other styles and makes them his own, in War Horse he has become RVW and his originality has been almost entirely consumed, but for the big, emotional theme that sounds like an early sketch for his own "For the Fallen" from Saving Private Ryan.

War Horse is the ultimate Lassie movie, with a horse instead of a dog. It's story is bitty, sometimes too bitty, and that is why, I think, I didn't develop any emotional link to the characters. Perhaps at two and a half hours it actually needed more time and a television mini series would have suited the epicness better.

Some say that Steven Spielberg is the king of schmaltz, and it's true that the storytelling in his best movies always has a strong schmaltzy element but War Horse adds an extra layer of saccharine with the screenplay being co-written by Richard Curtis.

In the end, I found that I simply didn't care enough about the horse, or its various owners. I was suitably shocked by the horror of the trenches but wasn't surprised with how the movie ended. It's a good movie. and nearly two and a half hours flies by, but it's not, in my opinion, a great movie as many have suggested, and I have seen many better movies in my time.