War Horse (major spoilage), Pt. 1

Just for the heck of it, I'm going to babble and spew and ramble about War Horse because it was the last movie I watched recently (not counting Thor, which is basically mind-candy) and I feel like writing a cynical review gosh-darnit. Review after the break, for those who don't care for exhaustive spoilers and nonsensical rambling.

I'm very cynical about horse movies. I'll go ahead and get that out of the way...having owned/trained/worked with a variety of horses makes me look at horses in movies and nit-pick over what they would or wouldn't do and why they're really doing something. So I'll continue, having gotten that disclaimer out of the way.

I've also only seen the movie once, so some of the details may be a bit off. 

The movie starts with the lead character, a horse named Joey, being born. His birth is in the middle of the day (!), surrounded by farmers (!!), and observed by the other main character, a boy named Albert. The cynical-ness set in immediately, with me yelling at the screen 'Horses almost always have their babies at night! And if they're being watched they'll freakin HOLD it til people leave them alone!' (Not ALL horses, perhaps. But unless they're having problems most mares are funny about that kind of thing.)

Moving on, there's a few scenes with Joey growing up, playing and being chased by Albert (who, in the vein of all 'good' horse movies, plays the part of the slow-moving cautious horse whisperer who magically gets Joey to do what he wants by the power of lurve. *sighs and grumbles*). Also, Joey makes weird horse noises a LOT. For reference, my horse will nicker when I come out to feed her, but she's dead silent when running around or goofing off. Horses aren't THAT vocal unless there's food or new horses involved. 

Moving on again, Joey is taken to market when he's 2. There is much ramming from Joey into his handler and rearing that is praised as 'headstrong' and 'what a fine animal' etc. This is where my internal trainer alarm for equine disrespect started blaring and I wanted to chase Joey with a longe whip. What a snotty horse...

He's bought by Ted Narracott, who is trying to out-bid his landlord and prove a point of being a better man than said landlord or something. He was supposed to get a plow horse instead (on a side note Joey is supposedly a Thoroughbred cross--he looks more like a Cleveland bay or a cob), but takes Joey home to his crabby wife and son Albert (surprise!). The wife, after a bit of husband-ragging, tells her husband and Albert that they have a month to get the horse trained or else he gets sold.

On a side note, Ted Narracott is called by his full name at least 10 times within a 5-minute scene. I don't know if they were trying to make a point or let the audience know who he was...

There's a few more scenes where Albert trains Joey to come at the sound of a whistle, does some more horse-whispering things, etc. Then the landlord, who keeps randomly showing up to rag on the family about his rent, comes and says that if they don't pay him back he'll take the horse and their farm. Ted Narracott says that they're going to plow the lower field, plant it in turnips, and use that to pay him off. Fine. That's all good and well. But Joey is only 2 and has never been backed or put in harness before.

Cue the dad going out after the landlord leaves, trying clumsily to harness the horse, and after getting knocked down by the horse he decides to shoot the horse. Long story short Albert and the wife convince him not to and Albert tries to get Joey to plow the field. The obnoxious landlord comes with friends to mock their efforts, along with the rest of the village. (At first I thought the neighbors were coming to help. But no, they were just coming to prove what absolute unfeeling jerks they are. Thanks for reaffirming my hope for humanity, movie.)

Long story short, Joey and Albert can't figure out how to plow correctly, it starts raining and the neighbors start to leave (thank goodness), and then Albert figures out that they can plow mud easier than plain rocky dirt and off they go until they plow the entire field.

Um. 2 year old horse, never been harnessed...and they plow an entire freakin' field with straight rows. In the pouring rain. My belief refuses to be suspended.

So after the heroic field-plowing Albert's mother shows him some medals that his father won in the war. He take a pennant and pockets it for later.

The next few scenes have Albert and Joey running happily across moors and fields...at this point I was pretty much cynic-ed out, but I have to concede on the point of the filmography: the landscape was GORGEOUS. It reminded me yet again why I want to go to England and ride horses across the moors (thought not as horse-whispery as Joey and Albert).

The hiiiiills are aliiiiive with the souuuund of muuuusiiiiic.....

There's a torrential rainstorm and the crop in the lower field is ruined. Albert's father, out of desperation for the upcoming rent deadline, takes Joey when Albert isn't home (or something) and sells him to an officer in the British army as they're getting ready to leave for overseas. The officer walks around from behind Joey and HOLY CRAP IT'S LOKI WITH RED HAIR.

(Seriously. I screamed and almost spit my tea across the computer. It was the weirdest thing ever.)

They settle on a price just as Albert comes running up. He tries to buy Joey back and/or join the army to no avail, and the Red-Haired Loki takes his cap off, looks Albert in the eye, and gives this wonderfully heartfelt speech about how he'll take care of Joey and get him back when the war is over. I couldn't take any of the speech seriously because all I could see was Loki with red hair and couldn't stop laughing. *sigh*

Anyway. Albert gives his tearful goodbye, ties his dad's pennant to Joey's halter, and watches as he is marched away with the other men and horses. At this point there was a shot of men waving and smiling and kissing their tearful wives goodbye...and yes, there were a few twinges in my cynical little heart. I mean...they thought they were going to fight gloriously and come home in a few months. And most of them died horrible deaths on the battlefield--they had no idea of the awfulness they would endure. To see a bunch of volunteers smiling and waving with flowers and crowds cheering them on...gah. So sad.

Joey is led through the army camp to be stalled next to a large black horse. There's more rearing and pushiness as Joey frets, but he calms down after Red-Haired Loki appears. RHL is standing patting Joey on the neck when a small group of officers appears, and one goes over to the black horse to pat him on the neck and say something about how his Topthorne is better than Joey any day. Hmmm, that voice sounds awfully familiar...HOLY CRAP IT'S SHERLOCK WITH A MUSTACHE. *mind explodes*

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN

Sherlockstache and RHL march off epically into the camera. This is where I sat up and started paying attention, because having two great actors as a point of reference makes movies much better.

More epic marching!

In the next scene or two RHL and Sherlockstache race each other on horseback (!) and RHL proves to be an equine artist (!!). Cue more flailing and the mind oozing from recent explosion.

Seriously though, RHL is having this conversation with a fellow officer about a hat, they talk about war stuff and dying, and then he's like 'now let me finish shading my pony'. It's priceless. Plus the horse racing scene is all 'my horse is faster than yours!' and 'no, my horse is faster than yours!' and much manly competition and horsey-ness abounds. Gah. 

(...I might have a tiny crush on these guys. Just a tiny one.)

Later Sherlockstache informs his men that they are going to ambush some Germans. Wait, so they're in Germany now? What? When did that happen? Never mind, there's more heroic charging to be had!

 

Next scene: field of nondescript grass. It's all gold and pretty with pollen blowing in the breeze. Then riders rise up out of the grass to mount their horses and ride forward at a walk (Sherlockstache yells the orders as they go). They start cantering, then galloping out of the field into a short grassy field. The Germans are unprepared and look as though they're going to be thoroughly routed when they retreat into a nearby forest and reveal a bunch of Gatling guns. 

I would like to add that the filmography, again, was beautiful in the transition from the golden, almost idyllic field, to the grey-green camp and short grassy field, to the dark shadowy forest. It wasn't exactly subtle, but it was a beautiful handling of the color and lighting.

Around the point that the Gatling guns are revealed, RHL get a closeup and his face--HIS FACE--he gets his horribly sad hopeless look on his face because he KNOWS what's going to happen and he KNOWS he's about to die and everything slows down and in slow-motion the Gatling guns start to fire...and then horses start to run past the Germans and their guns, but they're riderless. And RHL gets one more gut-wrenching closeup before it cuts to the edge of the forest, and Joey thunders past riderless and GAH. *sobs* I liked RHL...why did he have to die? *sniffles*

Sherlockstache is captured, and a German officer screams at  him about how stupid he (Sherlockstache) was for assuming a camp of Germans would be unprotected and "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING??" (To be fair, the same thought was going through my mind.)

Sherlockstache sees that the jig is up, get this same hopeless, terrible look on his face and drops his sword before dismounting. We never see him again...but I assume that he gets executed. *wibbles* The camera pans around to look at the field of battle...and it's filled with the bodies of horses and men and there's struggling bodies everywhere and IT'S SO SAD.

I think it was this point that I stopped being quite so cynical and got progressively more invested in the movie. Sigh. 

I have to stop here, because it's late and I can't take any more rubbing in of the fact that Red-Haired Loki and Sherlockstache are gone from the rest of the movie. Sigh. I'll be back with part 2 soon.