With every Steven Spielberg movie comes plenty of hype and excitement. After all, the director has given us some of cinemas most memorable moments. So, will Warhorse be joining those many moments?
Based on a play, that's based on a book Warhorse tells the story of a horse that goes to war after being sold to the army at the start of World War One. From here, his young owner Albert (Jeremy Irvine) decides to sign up for War duty in the hopes of finding his life long friend again. In the meantime Joey the horse, goes through a number of owners from the English army, a young girl and her grandfather and even the Germans. Couple this up with an undercurrent of father / son relationship struggle and a few financial woes for the family farm and you get yourself the latest Spielberg piece of celluloid.
The cast here are all perform adequately. Jeremy Irvin has a great decency about his character and is immediately likeable. The same can be said for the rest of the cast including Emily Watson, Peter Mullan and so on, who all perform adequately. With the exception of Albert though, most of the characters are quite cold and whilst the performance is fine, they come across a bit bland and unconnected to the audience. But the real shining light of the movie, is Joey the horse. Everytime he’s on screen (and thats for the best part of the movie) he is phenomenal. A real credit to the animal handlers, as we all know the cliché about working with animals. I can’t remember the last time I saw an animal onscreen that had so much personality and presence.
And speaking of cliché, alot of the look of the movie is, and here's where things start going down hill, a cliché. It’s very, and the only way I can describe is, diddledee-eye. In other words, it looks incredibly cheesy at times, particularly in the recreated English villages which look like their straight out of an old 80s TV show. The same can be said for the wardrobe here. It just looks incredibly cheesy and unrealistic and far too stereotypical. It doesn’t seem to be a realistic impression of that era in any sense of the word. And I’m basing that on years and years of watching American movies portray Ireland in the same way, on the big screen. I can appreciate the fact that this may well be the look they were going for, but it certainly didn’t work for me. And that sunset at the end? I don’t care what they say, there is no way in hell that isn’t colour corrected in some capacity.
All that said, once you do get to go to War, things get a bit more realistic and incredibly impressive with fantastic camera shots taking you right into the middle of battle. And its these scenes that do provide an exhilarating thrill ride at times. Some are simple, others more complex. Either way they are beautifully handled and shot. Obviously Mr. Spielberg learned a trick or two from Saving Private Ryan. And while its not the weep fest that you might be lead to believe, one scene in particular will have you on the edge of your seat, and nobody does these kinds of scenes better than Steven Spielberg.
At a running time of 146 minutes long, Warhorse may have you looking at the watch on one or two occasions, particularly as you’re not going to really care much about the human characters with minor exceptions. And at times parts of the movie look like they were thrown in for good measure. The grandfather and the daughter scenes, to me at least, only look like they’re filling the running time. 20 minutes could have easily been shaved off that 146. The look of the movie may work for some of you, for others you’ll be looking around for your television remote.
And while things pick up in the second half, its a bit too late to save the movie. Its by no means a disaster, but at the same time it’s certainly not Spielberg's greatest and given I’m a huge, huge fan of the director, it pains me to say this, Warhorse is no thoroughbred.
