Friday, January 27, 2012

Film Review - War Horse (2011)


War Horse is the 2nd film by Steven Spielberg to be released with his Tintin adaptation, the story here concerns Albert (Jeremy Irvine) who comes across a horse he names Joey, but when war breaks out with Germany the horse is sold to a sergeant (Tom Hiddleston), and from there the Horse goes on an adventure across a war torn battefield.

Okay I went into War Horse with mixed expectations as I had heard both good and bad reviews for the film, so with that how I did I find it?

Well there's good and there's bad, first off I'll start with the good and that is the performance by Tom Hiddelston, he brings a lot of heart to his role and makes up for his role in Thor, where his Loki was the weak link of that film, I also liked John Williams's score in places.

But the score also sums up my middle of the road feelings regarding the movie, for while I thought it was okay, I also thought it was very problematic for two reasons:

1. The Length: The film is way way too long, its 150 minutes and boy do you feel the length at times, especially near the film's ending, there were numerous times during that last section that I checked my watch waiting for it to end.

2. The Script: yes folks, the film's script by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis feels very episodic, part of me felt this story would work better as a mini series in the style of Band of Brothers or the Pacific, as it would've allowed better development of the human characters who play second fiddle to the horse.

So all in all, I didn't hate War Horse but its too flawed for me to recommend, 2 out of 5.

1 comment:

Rahul said...

Steven Spielberg as always rocked the Hollywood once again. M sure that it is going to pull a huge crowd towards theaters. And what a performance by Jeremy Irvine!!! Oh my god.......Hats off to the genius. He deserves doctorate degree for this act in the movie.