Film review: War Horse

An English country boy lives in an English country house and watches a horse give birth with a little too much enthusiasm. He then keeps watching the foal as it grows and becomes a big horse. Once a big horse the boys dad buys it for way too much money and to use it for a purpose that would inevitably lead it to have severe health problems. Loki of Thor and The Avengers fame then turns up and takes the horse to war. Once at war the horse spends a lot of time running away from people and meeting lots of foreigners who love horses. Inevitably the boy and the horse meet back up and at some point we are all meant to cry.

This story as most of you know was originally on stage, and probably a book at some point aswell. According to my parents the stage show is amazing and the horse puppet people stop being puppet people and become actual real life horses in front of your eyes. I cannot vouch for this unfortunately as I haven't seen the stage show but as far as the film is concerned it may have been made better if a few puppets were involved. The film spends three hours trying its hardest to make you cry. Every person involved has been told to act to within an inch of their lives and then add another 10%. Even the good actors go way over the top in a bid to make you love this horse. I did not love this horse. Admittedly it is not the horses fault as it is actually very good at doing all its little horsey things and is very convincing as a horse. The filmmakers however try to make the horse something it is not and anthropomorphise (thats a word right) the crap out of it. Also it does bug me that someone, anyone throughout the film from the good guys to the bad didn't think to shoot the horse. I am not saying I wanted the horse shot but in a war situation why would all those people keep it alive, especially when it is sometimes a pain in the arse and behaves badly and would have made a lot of sandwiches. Again, please see Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for reference, they have non english speaking people speak english to each other be them german or french, ITS ANNOYING. That however is not as annoying as them trying to make me cry all of the time, any more and they would have been cutting onions in my living room and playing coldplay. Bunch of crap.

Verdict: 1/5