War Horse

I saw this a while back. I mentioned it to about everyone that I know. And I have to come back and say again; This is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Those who know me will tell you that I'm picky about movies. What makes a great movie to me is a pretty high bar, and I rarely ever gush about a movie's good points without harping on its bad. You'd probably also find, if you were to watch a good number of films with me, that the ones I like best are emotionally stirring, eye-poppingly beautiful, and full of rousing action. A movie that has all three of these is... well, nigh unto impossible. Honestly, if it has even two I'll usually just try to ignore the lack of the third (Examples include movies such as J.J. Abrams Star Trek, which was emotional and rousing, but eye-blinding as opposed to popping. Also, James Cameron's Avatar, which was rousing, and to which eye-popping is an understatement, but held almost no emotional value for me).

War Horse, however, was all three of these things. The story was sentimental, right from the start. Every time they introduced a new character, I connected with them on some sort of emotional level. The situations of every person involved in Joey's (the horse) life elicited sympathy. Not fake crap either. Genuine sympathy. Joey himself is the main character as far as I am concerned, and is the best example of good humane values that you'll ever find in a film protagonist. He's fantastic. He made me laugh, he made me cry, he made me cheer, and at the end of the movie I was sad the story was over. It ended very well, perfectly, in fact, but I was still sad.

The cinematography was also flawless, and the special effects were amazing. I can't really go into details on why I say that, because I don't believe in giving spoilers, but they did some stuff with the horse in here that I know were digital simply because it said that no animals were harmed in the production at the end of the credits. Otherwise, I would have thought it was a real horse. Fantastic. And thanks to this movie, I will never be able to think of WWI the same way again. The images were beautiful and horrific at the same time. Amazing.

It's less rousing as far as action goes than most of the movies I really go for, but hey, it's got a huge war in the middle of it. Big guns. Charging across fields with swords. So it's got enough, and the best part is the action compliments the characters and the story without distracting at any point.

My end opinion then? War Horse is magnificent. I really can't say that enough. I have no criticisms at all, and I mean that literally. This is a must see for everyone over 13 as far as I'm concerned. Will I be buying a horse as a result of watching this movie? Well... probably not. See, our apartment won't allow pets, and despite everything I've said and every point I've made, our landlord still won't agree that a horse like Joey is basically a person.

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