War Horse

Horses are people too, you know.


Nominated for:
Best Picture

Also nominated for:
Cinematography
At Direction
Original Score
Sound Mixing
Sound Editing

Here's a question for you - is Spielberg even trying anymore? Should we send out a search party for his talent, or has it suffocated under his massive pile of money? This film delivers exactly what the advertising promises. So you may as well just watch the trailer and save yourself the 146 minutes (that's 7 minutes longer than The Tree of Life, FYI).

The fundamental problem with this film is that every single moment is given a huge amount emotional weight. Every line of dialog is a big moral lesson, every music cue is EPIC, and practically every frame is a glamour shot of the bloody horse. How can your story build to any kind of climax with that level of constant melodrama? Where do you go with your story when the epic scale is already cranked to 10? (... To 11 maybe?)

The technical work that went into this film is all superb, but the acting is terrible, and the dialog is atrocious. Plus, the main kid throws off this creepy bestiality vibe whenever he gets near the horse, and that combined with all the field ploughing (first 1/2 hour of the film) forced me to suppress some very dirty puns.

The whole thing is a mess. SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE AWAY SPIELBERG'S MONEY!!!

Eli