2011
Directed by Steven Spielberg
I knew within two minutes of this film that I wasn't going to like it. Unfortunately for me, that meant another two hours and twenty-four minutes of sickening sentimentalism. This is not Jurassic Park Spielberg, this is ET Spielberg. Call me a romantic, but I much prefer the version that includes someone getting eaten by a dinosaur while on the toilet.
In 1912, a young boy named Albert raises a a young horse. His father Ted is forced to sell the horse to the army, which devastates Albert. Albert enlists in the army as soon as he can. I won't go into detail about what happens next, but if you're anything like me, you'll be saying "yes, get over it, it's a horse" at least fifteen times throughout the film.
I have never really liked horse stories, with The Horse and His Boy coming in dead last in my ranking of the Narnia books. I have only gone horseback riding once, where my coolness was somewhat undercut by the fact that I had to use a child's saddle due to my size (Lil Dudez was the brand name). In any case, if I did have a horse, his name would be Shadowfax or Epona. If you understood either of those references, we can be best friends.
Ahem. Back to the movie. What a total sapfest. I know it's a family film, but even family films shouldn't be as predictable as this movie was. Skip.
RATING: **---
Interesting Facts:
Only three shots in the movie contained any special effects.
Joey was played by 14 different horses.
Yes, yes, yes, and yes again.
ReplyDeleteWhat a relief to find someone who is willing to express the same viewpoint on this simplistic, sentimental, predictable, cliche ridden, paint-by-nembers pile of goo..
It was dire wasn't it.. and such a drag to sit through, I'm fairly sure I fast forwarded through bits of it...
And, unless, I've got something wrong here .. the horse is a carrier of misfortune .. As far as I recall, just about everyone he interacts with has something bad happen to them.. And not just the unpleasant people .. (as if the horse was some sort of bringer of divine justice).. the supposed good people come to a sticky end. (I'm recalling the nice German).
So, in some way we could see that, the horse, using some sort of supernatural gift to get rid of successive owners so he could make his way back to the 'boy'? Or even (now here's putting proverbial cats among symbolic pigeons), some un-named heavenly deity with a big white beard, sitting on a cloud (no, I don't mean Gandalf, oh come on, take me seriously here!) was moving in mysterious ways to bring the boy his horse back? Oh that's nice isn't it?
How many Gandalf references can we make in one post? I would have totally enjoyed the evil horse story more. Especially if it had an evil laugh.
DeleteI enjoyed War Horse the way I enjoy Manos the Hands of Fate or a Coleman Francis movie.
ReplyDelete