War Horse (12A.)
Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Starring Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullen, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch and David Thewlis. 147 mins.
The children’s book by Michael Morpurgo and, even more so, the National Theatre production are untouchable national treasures. Spielberg’s film version is unlikely to inspire quite such level of affection but it will be much loved. So gather up your tomatoes and mouldy cabbages because, against my better judgment, I am going to try and make a case against War Horse.
Primarily, I can’t really see the point in a children’s story that isn’t suitable for children. The title creature is part Champion the Wonder Horse, part Yellow Rolls Royce. After forming an indestructible bond with his owner Albert (Irvine) the heroic equine is sent off to the trenches of the First World War where it performs heroic feats of endurance and passes from one owner to the next, each representing a different side of the conflict.
Presenting the First World War through the eyes of a horse may work beautifully on the page and on the stage because the use of illustration and puppets respectively make an abstraction of the horror. On screen though it comes across as a queasy mix of pantomime and Private Ryan.
Even allowing for it being a difficult task to pull off this is below par Spielberg. The first hour in which young Albert in Devon (Irvine) breaks in the horse and tries to save the family farm is interminable old tosh, like a CBBC version of Ryan’s Daughter. When we are thrown into the conflict the film offers up a few strong sequences but there are also some terrible choices.
Spoilers, the worst example of this is the final scene, an emotional reunion shot against a blood red sky, reminiscent of Gone With The Wind or the bright sunset that Del Boy and Rodney walked off into in the first ever last ever episode of Only Fools and Horses. It’s feels like a quick fix, a last ditch attempt to pump in some emotion but it’s so overbearing and inappropriate it flattens any charge the scene might have carried.
Of course, this may sound all too predictable. Marble hearted cynics with scrunched up souls have always distrusted Spielberg’s unguarded emotionalism, and when it is in the service of a script by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, Spoonface Steinberg) two masters of tasteful sentimentalism, that much more so. But this is Spielberg we’re talking about, the man who can melt the coldest heart, and this is the stuff he is the master of. I expected a tough and ultimately unsuccessful effort to hold in the tears, but in the end it was a breeze.
Directed by Steven Spielberg.
Starring Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullen, Tom Hiddleston, Benedict Cumberbatch and David Thewlis. 147 mins.
The children’s book by Michael Morpurgo and, even more so, the National Theatre production are untouchable national treasures. Spielberg’s film version is unlikely to inspire quite such level of affection but it will be much loved. So gather up your tomatoes and mouldy cabbages because, against my better judgment, I am going to try and make a case against War Horse.
Primarily, I can’t really see the point in a children’s story that isn’t suitable for children. The title creature is part Champion the Wonder Horse, part Yellow Rolls Royce. After forming an indestructible bond with his owner Albert (Irvine) the heroic equine is sent off to the trenches of the First World War where it performs heroic feats of endurance and passes from one owner to the next, each representing a different side of the conflict.
Presenting the First World War through the eyes of a horse may work beautifully on the page and on the stage because the use of illustration and puppets respectively make an abstraction of the horror. On screen though it comes across as a queasy mix of pantomime and Private Ryan.
Even allowing for it being a difficult task to pull off this is below par Spielberg. The first hour in which young Albert in Devon (Irvine) breaks in the horse and tries to save the family farm is interminable old tosh, like a CBBC version of Ryan’s Daughter. When we are thrown into the conflict the film offers up a few strong sequences but there are also some terrible choices.
Spoilers, the worst example of this is the final scene, an emotional reunion shot against a blood red sky, reminiscent of Gone With The Wind or the bright sunset that Del Boy and Rodney walked off into in the first ever last ever episode of Only Fools and Horses. It’s feels like a quick fix, a last ditch attempt to pump in some emotion but it’s so overbearing and inappropriate it flattens any charge the scene might have carried.
Of course, this may sound all too predictable. Marble hearted cynics with scrunched up souls have always distrusted Spielberg’s unguarded emotionalism, and when it is in the service of a script by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, Spoonface Steinberg) two masters of tasteful sentimentalism, that much more so. But this is Spielberg we’re talking about, the man who can melt the coldest heart, and this is the stuff he is the master of. I expected a tough and ultimately unsuccessful effort to hold in the tears, but in the end it was a breeze.
