In 7 words or less: Not 'Saving Private Ryan with a horse'
What's it all About? Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the West End play's adaptation of the Michael Morpurgo novel. A farm boy from Devon falls for a special horse called Joey, they are separated during WW1 where they both go off to France to fight in the trenches, the horse is passed from one owner to the next in a series of unlikely events until they are finally re-united. And they all live happily ever after.
Best bits? This is a Disneyfied version of WW1 with Spielberg at the helm. The opening scenes at the farm are very Lord of the Rings/Hobbiton esque, with over blown sentiment, caricatured farmers accents and a sweeping score going on continuously under every conversation. Imagine the theme tune to Jurassic Park but sing the lines 'it's a wa-r horse, it's a wa-r horse, it's a war-a-a-a-r horse!' and you get the picture.
There are some fantastic scenes, a highlight was when Joey the horse races across no-man's land getting caught up in the barb wire, an English Tommy and a German Jerry call a momentary truce to help get the horse out, they form a common bond and have some banter about bolt-cutters before retreating back to their trenches to shoot at each other again. This 'it's war, it's nothing personal' scene is really quite believable and touching, as the tales of enemy soldiers playing football and singing christmas carols to each are well documented.
The horse performance is truly amazing, the Germans pulling the artillery up the hill with the exhausted animals, and the aforementioned barb wire entanglement are agonising to watch and so convincing. This is terrific helmsmanship from the bergmeister and the talented crew, cinematographer and animal trainers. If only the script was as convincing it could have been something more, but it stops and starts with clunky exposition and grated (grating) cheddar.
Many scenes are clearly lifted straight from the play, you can see how these would work well on stage, from a distance, but in a cinema they are too obvious, modern audiences are used to a more subtle approach, which would have helped the characters and story to be more convincing.
It's a beautiful, classically shot old fashioned kind of movie, but is about as believable as Babe: Pig in the City. It could have been called 'Joey: Horse in a War'. You have to admire the epic film-making and a lot of the scenes are really breathtaking. There is little and considered use of CGI and it's clear that a lot of these fantastic scenes were in a field in Kent with hundreds of extras running around in the mud, which is awesome. You know that if Spielberg did a gritty WW1 story for an adult audience it would be absolutely banging.
Another thing that bugged me slightly was the Germans and French all speaking English to each other, which is down to the family aspect not permitting the use of subtitles creating an underlying sense of inauthenticity.
It is great to see a host of British talent here include Benedict Cumberbatch (who is in everything right now) Eddie Marsen (who rules) and Geoff Bell (east end rough neck for hire) and too many more to mention. I really liked Tom Hiddleson as the stiff upper lip captain who buys the horse and sends drawings of him back from the front before being taken out in a display of English gung-ho spirit against German defensive strategy and modern fire power. The lead, Jeremy Irvine, does his best Samwise Gamgee impersonation throughout. Joey the horse is his 'Mr Frodo' and he will faithfully follow him anywhere, be it the fires of Mount Doom or the hell of the Somme.
Did it make you think thoughts? Spielberg is one of the few film-makers in Hollywood who can click his fingers and get something like this done in less than a year. Boy that guy has some clout. However, for a seasoned war film aficionado, and an adult, this only gave me a desire to see what he would do if he decided to make a 'proper' WW1 movie. Michael Morpurgo (the original author) is best known for children's fiction so to get a real opinion on this film's success you would have to ask a child.
Would you watch it again? I would watch it for the epic, sweeping battle scenes, the picturesque landscapes and the amazing realism of an animal running around a warzone, but would fast forward through the 'plot' and dialogue.
Rating (out of 100%): If there was an Oscar for 'Best Equine Performance' I would have to give it to Joey the wonder horse, however I expect there will be plenty of Golden Raspberry nominations for this one. I'm not a 'nay-sayer' and this film wasn't totally 'pony', but I will still only rate it 61%.
