I am a huge Steven Spielberg fan, then again anyone who has had the experience of E.T. and Elliot flying across the sky in a bicycle kind of has to be. But I will be the first to admit that war movies are not my thing. The idea of following a horse for over two hours was also a little daunting. How much can a horse do? The hype drew me in though and I found myself sitting with my popcorn ready to take the gore for the sake of art.
The story itself was beautiful woven, showing both sides of World War Two, and the many different people who were affected by it. Unfortunately, death is prevalent as well as injury and there are some scenes that are just unbearable to watch. Basically, unless you can handle a constant stream or bullets intermitted with tortured animals, skip this one. When the Joey, the horse, gets stuck in barbed wire, the scene seemed to drag on way longer than necessary, In fact, at one point I even had to cover my eyes and yell “make it stop.” Animal cruelty was a big part of the film as well and I can’t help but wonder if APA was present throughout filming to ensure that none of it was real.
For those of you with a stronger stomach for gore than I, the acting was above-average, and the score was well done. Though I’m not sure this will be one we talk about for decades, or that I will add to my library, it was definitely a big project and I applaud Spielberg for taking it on.
Noteworthy:
The scene where two opposing soldiers help Joey (the horse) out of barbed wire, is the best in the whole movie. It showed the humanity of both sides of the war (British and German) and had some great lines that added some much needed humor after a very serious incident.
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