War Horse - Review

For those who saw the trailer to War Horse and immediately wanted to gouge their eyes out at the thought of watching a family-friendly horsey film set to the sweeping backdrop of World War One - this film isn't going to win you over. For those with a slightly more open mind, who understand that the range of 'family-friendly' Spielberg films include such well recognised works as E.T and Hook - War Horse isn't half bad at all, and the film itself definitely isn't as sentimental as the sickening trailer.
Yes, this is just another film making the point that 'war is bad, and people get hurt,' and this topic isn't at all foreign to Spielberg. His past works include Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List, Empire of the Sun, and two factually based HBO miniseries - Band of Brothers and The Pacific. It's safe to say the subject of war is of particular interest and is very personal to him, as references to war and the holocaust also inhabit many of his non-war movies.
But War Horse is different in that it delivers this anti-war message within a film that's suitable for the younger viewers among us, and quite importantly it's a film that young people will actually want to see. Your 12 year old son/daughter isn't likely to be in a hurry to watch a documentary about the horrors of war, and quite possibly the message as delivered in that medium might not even make sense to them. But show them a sad story about a horse, which represents the tragedy of war from a lovable four-legged creature's point of view, and suddenly it will all make sense. It's that perspective from which the success of this film can be best appreciated.
The battle scenes in the movie are quite a spectacle (if rather tame in regards to realistic violence), and mark the most epic depiction of World War One on the big screen for many years. In popular movies, it's a war that's generally overlooked, so it's nice to see Spielberg give it the grand treatment.
Acting is top rate on all counts, and the horse is represented well if not a little disconnected from the audience at times. The original tale by Michael Morpurgo was written from the perspective of the horse, so this is probably just a result of the necessary changes made to adapt the story from page to screen. Just think of it this way - if Disney had made this, the horse would probably have talked. That's enough to make anyone appreciate Spielberg's take on the material a whole lot more.
There were only two real gripes I had with the movie. The first was the use of English dialogue by German and French characters, which really bugged me from start to finish. But then I suppose you could again argue that they're trying to make a film that's accessible to children, and children are lazy and don't like to read? Still, having hammy German accents throughout many scenes ruined the illusion for me, especially when the German soldier claimed to speak 'very good English,' despite every other German character on the battlefield speaking fluent English aswell. Hmmm.
The other gripe (while minor) was lead character Albert sounding a bit too 'Samwise Gamgee' for my liking. I half expected him to shout out 'Mr. Frodo!' at just about any second and go bounding off to the Shire.
Overall though, it's not a bad movie, but it's very set on being a family film and therefore it might not be to everyone's tastes. It is a bit cheesy and predictable in parts, but when you think back to E.T for example, and how we put it on a pedestal because many of us grew up with it. Well surprise, E.T is incredibly cheesy too. War Horse is that same kind of cheesy - the kind that this generation of children will grow up with fond memories of.