Review of War Horse. Despite beautiful sights and sounds, the heart is missing from Steven Spielberg’s War Horse.
Filmmaker Steven Spielberg replaces the pulleys, ropes and levers responsible for bringing to life the incredible life-size puppets at the heart of War Horse, the stage play, with soaring camerawork over England’s Devon countryside, an elaborate recreation of the World War I trenches known as No Man’s Land and pinpoint details of the period characters and backdrops in his sprawling movie adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s popular children’s book. Spielberg matches the epic scale of the play, which originated at London’s National Theatre and went on to win five Tony Awards on Broadway, but he fails to recreate its emotional intimacy and soulfulness.
Overflowing with beautiful sights and rousing sounds, War Horse is moviemaking as intricate assembly, elaborate engineering and cold mathematics. It’s technique more than storytelling despite Spielberg having at his disposal the classic tale of a boy and his undying love and devotion to his pet, in the case of War Horse, a powerful bay red foal with a distinct white mark on his nose named Joey.
Pushing all the hoopla aside, War Horse is a missed opportunity for Spielberg; a wartime drama far less compelling than Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List and a unique friendship story missing the emotional pull of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
War Horse opens Christmas Day, just four days after another mediocre Spielberg movie, his 3D motion-capture adventure The Adventures of Tintin. Both films disappoint and they raise the possibility that the time for audiences to get excited over a new Steven Spielberg movie may be over.
A teenage boy named Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine), the son of poor Devon farmers (Peter Mullan, Emily Watson), is separated from his beloved horse Joey during the Great War so he joins the British Army in hopes of finding him in the harsh Western Front landscape known as No Man’s Land.
Along the way, Albert experiences plenty of harrowing adventures but no more than his horse Joey.
War Horse features the most impressive ensemble of all the holiday releases and they do their best to add a subtle, human touch to such an extravagant film.
Tom Hiddleston brings welcome warmth and kindness as Captain Nicholls, the British Cavalry officer who buys Joey and pledges to return him safely home.
Benedict Cumberbatch, best known for his starring role in the BBC series Sherlock, makes great use of his brief scenes as Major Stewart, the who leads his cavalry regiment into battle and delivers the most rousing speech in the movie.
Niels Arestrup is heartfelt as the French grandfather who briefly shelters Joey with his young granddaughter (Celine Buckens) during the war and Peter Mullan and Emily Watson provide plenty of emotional sparks as Albert’s poor but hardworking parents.
The sole misstep belongs to newcomer Jeremy Irvine as Albert, who fails to make us care about Joey the way his character does. Irvine emotes adequately but there’s little heart behind his crocodile tears and anguished expressions.
Scenes of Joey (played by 14 different horses from colt to adult) running through the ruined landscape of No Man’s Land are stunning as well as a beautiful sequence as the British Cavalry mounts their horses before charging the Germans in the camouflage of a French wheat field.
Longtime Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski (Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Catch Me if You Can) sweeps his cameras across the beautiful English countryside in a manner that would make David Lean proud.
Production designer Rick Carter (Avatar), who pays homage to Gone With the Wind with the scenes set at the ramshackle Narracott farm, fills the movie with intricate details down to the old-fashioned Patten swords carried by the British soldiers.
There’s no limit to the film’s dazzling images, from the quaint Devon moors and villages to the massive and brutal German Howitzers, mechanized tanks, clouds of mustard gas and constant barrage of automatic artillery. War Horse is Hollywood eye candy of the highest quality.
What’s missing; what lies upon Spielberg’s shoulders; is heart every bit as bold and gargantuan as the movie built around the horse.
Distributor: Touchstone Pictures
Cast: Jeremy Irvine, Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Niels Arestrup, David Thewlis, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch
Screenwriter: Lee Hall, Richard Curtis, from the original novel by Michael Morpurgo
Director: Steven Spielberg
Cinematographer: Janusz Kaminski
Editor: Michael Kahn
Producers: The Kennedy/Marshall Company, Amblin Entertainment, Reliance Entertainment, DreamWorks SKG, Touchstone Pictures Running Time: 146 minutes
Rating: Rated PG-13
Release Date: December 25, 2011