War Horse (2011) - 1/12/2012

While in Phoenix I saw more movies in 9 days than I've seen in the last 9 months.  Just something fun to do and my dad will go see dorky movies with me no one else will.  While both a bit hesitant, we went to see War Horse.  I know both of us assumed this was going to be a Black Beauty remake, which was a good movie, but sort of over done drama about man and beast.  I left the theater completely impressed.  Yes, there were moments of "We want an oscar for this," but is that really all that bad?  Of course it needs to be in moderation, but overall, this movie really touched me.  It wove symbols in and passed an item between characters and completed the cycle of the item in a beautiful way.  The relationship they established with the boy and the horse was well done, you got depth to the parents and to characters they meat along the way, etc.  It was impressive and that's not even me going into the WWI accuracy my dad was positively giddy about.  

Things I liked:

• Relationships - I'm huge on these in my writing projects and this movie did an excellent job establishing them.  There was depth to the boy, the parents, the army captain, the Germans, the officers, the grandfather and granddaughter, the boys who escape, etc.  All these people you got attached to in the film. That's not easy to do and it impressed me.
• The connection in the passing of the item that the boy gives the horse.  Without giving too much away, it was just well paced and ended in a beautiful way.  Movies like "Romancing the Stone" didn't do that very well and this is an example on how to do it well.  In "Romancing the Stone" the main character can't open a jar in the opening scene - it should have come full circle and had Michael Douglas open a jar for her later in the movie...it would complete her...yada yada.  This movie did it well, this movie connected the dots.
• The ACCURACY of WWI.  It's rare to see a movie that shows more than trench warfare in WWI.  I liked in War Horse how it showed the beginning, middle and end of the war.  You got to see it all.  And they made it very real.  Worth seeing in the theater to get what these men went though.
• Moments of intensity - there were several moments of tension/intensity followed by silence that were beautifully done.

Things I didn't like:

• Some scenes where they were trying to channel older films (wide angle shots that was reminiscent of "Gone with the Wind" and the like were sometimes a little cheesy.  Not terrible, just a little much at times.
• The Germans were portrayed as asses for the most part.  I don't know if this is just a personal bias, but I don't understand why almost every movie about Germans in war make them really tense and just mean.  War Horse did the same, except for in one scene and then with one German character.  Again, not terrible, just a bias.

Overall, I was incredibly impressed with this film.  As a sample for good story arches, ways to solidify characters and their motivations, progression, linking a bunch of people, etc....this was a great film.  It did tug at the heart strings a few times as well.  I was really impressed and I went in not expecting much.