“War horse, there he is, a strange beast you’ve become.” Nice quote? Yeah, I agree, bloody good film as well. War Horse is an adventure film directed by the one and only Steven Spielberg, just from that, the film is already epic. The cast of the film include Jeremy Irvine taking on the main human role of Albert. You also have Peter Mullan, Emily Watson, Tom Hiddleston, Toby Kebbell and Matt Milne, no majorly famous faces, but you’ll recognise them when you see them. The film is set during WWI and the majority of the film is in France.
Albert is a young boy and his father goes out and buys a horse, but he buys a thoroughbred instead of the plough horse that the family needs, so Albert takes it upon himself to train the horse, who he names Joey. When torrential rain ruins the family’s chances of getting a good harvest, Albert’s father sells Joey to the British Cavalry. This film is based around Joey and Albert’s relationship and mainly follows Joey and he changes owner.
This set design for this film was extraordinary. Less and less films are war dramas and even if they are, they aren’t usually based on the First World War. This film portrayed it so well though, the sets were perfect, the costumes were amazing, especially in love with the uniforms. The locations that were chosen were wise choices. No Man’s land was shown brilliantly, I was genuinely astounded by the quality.
The best part of the film for me was in No Man’s Land, where our Geordie soldier Colin and Peter, the German soldier, come together to save Joey and then flip a coin to decide who gets the horse. It was brilliant, just casually showing towards the end of the film that the simplest of things can bring enemies together for one cause.
This film is an emotional rollercoaster; it’s happy, sad and everything in between. It is a story about a friendship that literally goes through war and still remains intact. If you liked E.T. and Lassie, this is definitely a film you’ll enjoy. I wouldn’t say that this is a kid’s film, because I genuinely enjoyed it, and I can guarantee that I’m not seven years old, so yes, I’m vouching for this film and saying go out of your way to watch it.
