Steven Spielburg. God among men.
War Horse. God among stage plays.

How could a combination of the two be bad? Take a seat on Uncle Chris' knee and he'll tell you all about it.

War Horse is a film based on a play based on a book, which has been adapted and directed by Steven Spielburg. The story goes that a poor farmer buys a fancy horse at the market, and his son takes the challenge of training this fancy "thoroughbred" to plough the fields. Of course, he's successful, and falls wildly in love with the horse. Then the horse is called away to war and then is involved in a charge and then escapes and then meets some German soldiers and then escapes and then meets a French girl and then escapes and then meets some more German soldiers and then escapes and then meets some barbed wire and then escapes and then meets some British soldiers and then finally is reunited with his young male sweetheart from all the way at the start. Aww.

Now, considering the dark nature of the book, when I saw that the film had a 12a certificate, I face palmed. However, the war parts of the film are very well done. We know that Mr Spielburg is the Joseph Goebbels of war films after his masterpiece Saving Private Ryan, and he brings that same atmosphere to the table here, albeit a little more child friendly(as child friendly as World War 1 can be).

However, this film is essentially divided into two parts, and then these parts are jumbled together. The first part (the good part) is about the war. The other half is about various people falling in love with the horse throughout its journey. This is the most saccharin, cheesy nonsense I've seen in a film for a while. People fall in love with the horse very easily, and this includes other horses. The most annoying way in which the film is ruined because of this, is that the horse is personified in completely ridiculous ways, like the horses gloating to each other after a race, and one horse jumping in front of a gun to protect another horse. Horses don't do that kind of thing, so unless that was actually Sarah Jessica Parker, please stop it.

There are also two story lines with some young German soldiers and a young French girl, where the horse ends up temporarily in their company. These story lines are pointless, are over too quickly to add anything of value, and considering the film runs at almost two and a half hours, would have benefited from being cut.

At a more fundamental level, I think I might have bought into the soppy side of the story more if it seemed like the horse was desperately trying to get back to his original owner. I know that contradicts what I said before about how horses shouldn't act like people, but if you're going the cheese route, the least you can do is fully commit to it. Throughout the film, the horse just seems to be getting on with it, and doesn't really give a shit who's side it's on. I suppose it's like Switzerland in that sense.

Overall, it's a very well made film, which can only lead me to believe that Spielburg was misguided about how to do the film, and instead of ending up with a brilliant war drama, we have the shiniest turd in the land.