Review of War Horse (2011) by Battleterror — 10 Jun 2012

Great film. The tone exists somewhere between reality and a fariy tale. The phrase 'they don't make them like they used to' does not apply to this film. It's rich in film making tradition and craft. Spielberg is still in a class of his own and has remained admirably true to his values despite more cynical times. This is a film that wears it's heart on it's sleeve and has no pretensions. All the regular Spileberg collaborators have turned in top work: John Williams has written one of his most stirring scores, Janusz Kaminski's cinematography is superb as usual and he has given the film more colour saturation than usual to bring the beautiful locations to life. Production values are all top. The film is very well cast too and all the actors really inhabit their characters even though they are subtly caricatured.

The second act of the film is my only real criticism. It's slightly malformed and unexpected but this doesn't detract from the film as a whole. There is an obligation to the source material that perhaps holds the film back in places. Overall this is a must see and it's great to see Spielberg make a film that echoes his work from 2 decades ago.