Here's a shout out to Matt and a special request to review War Horse.
Oh
God
What
Tosh
Don't be fooled by the IMDB entry for this film. It is not about young Albert, going to war to find his horse, Joey, who was commandeered by the British Army. No, War Horse is about a magic horse who lurches from one ridiculous and cliché-ridden scenario to the next, all the while surviving bullets, barbed wire, explosions, more bullets, I think the blunt end of an axe nearly featured early on, and more explosions.
In other words, War Horse is an equine 007.
You see, as much as Steven Spielberg tries to dress this story up as one of heroic animal endurance, it is really one of murder and death. Just like with James Bond, anyone who gets close to Joey winds up dead. (With the exception of Albert, which makes him Moneypenny in this analogy.)
(At the same time, Joey is also a bit like Chewbacca: he can understand spoken English but can only go "neeeeiiighhhhh" in reply, which is ok, as everyone understands him back.)
To cut a long story short, every attempt is made to pull the heart strings, from the terminally ill French girl who comes to love the horse (after said horse cruelly runs into cannon fire to kill the British officer on his back, then connivingly tricks two German stablehands to desert their posts with him, resulting in their quick capture and execution); to the whinnying Joey in barbed wire in no-man's land (where he tricks to opposing soldiers to risk all to get at him); to the moment at the end where Albert is putting everything on the line to buy the horse back.
The climax of this bit is probably the happiest moment in the film. You see, the French girl's grandfather shows up out of the blue and outbids Albert because he wants something to help him to remember his granddaughter. Why's that? Because she died after falling in love with Joey The Evil Horse. But the granddad wakes up to Joey's plan in time and after some fake haggling, quickly hands the horse back to Albert for nothing, glad to be free of the obvious death sentence. And I liked the clichéd old fellow, so I'm happy he escaped a certain and painful mauling death by rabid dogs hiding around the next corner.
So, in summary, this film scores 0 Money Trains if viewed as a regular film about plucky courage; and 1.0 Money Trains if viewed with the horse as the evil protagonist.
The questions that remains with me after watching it are:
1. Is Joey more like 007, or the Sirens of Greek legend?
2. What the hell happened to Steven Spielberg? He used to do good films.
Oh
God
What
Tosh
Don't be fooled by the IMDB entry for this film. It is not about young Albert, going to war to find his horse, Joey, who was commandeered by the British Army. No, War Horse is about a magic horse who lurches from one ridiculous and cliché-ridden scenario to the next, all the while surviving bullets, barbed wire, explosions, more bullets, I think the blunt end of an axe nearly featured early on, and more explosions.
In other words, War Horse is an equine 007.
You see, as much as Steven Spielberg tries to dress this story up as one of heroic animal endurance, it is really one of murder and death. Just like with James Bond, anyone who gets close to Joey winds up dead. (With the exception of Albert, which makes him Moneypenny in this analogy.)
(At the same time, Joey is also a bit like Chewbacca: he can understand spoken English but can only go "neeeeiiighhhhh" in reply, which is ok, as everyone understands him back.)
To cut a long story short, every attempt is made to pull the heart strings, from the terminally ill French girl who comes to love the horse (after said horse cruelly runs into cannon fire to kill the British officer on his back, then connivingly tricks two German stablehands to desert their posts with him, resulting in their quick capture and execution); to the whinnying Joey in barbed wire in no-man's land (where he tricks to opposing soldiers to risk all to get at him); to the moment at the end where Albert is putting everything on the line to buy the horse back.
The climax of this bit is probably the happiest moment in the film. You see, the French girl's grandfather shows up out of the blue and outbids Albert because he wants something to help him to remember his granddaughter. Why's that? Because she died after falling in love with Joey The Evil Horse. But the granddad wakes up to Joey's plan in time and after some fake haggling, quickly hands the horse back to Albert for nothing, glad to be free of the obvious death sentence. And I liked the clichéd old fellow, so I'm happy he escaped a certain and painful mauling death by rabid dogs hiding around the next corner.
So, in summary, this film scores 0 Money Trains if viewed as a regular film about plucky courage; and 1.0 Money Trains if viewed with the horse as the evil protagonist.
The questions that remains with me after watching it are:
1. Is Joey more like 007, or the Sirens of Greek legend?
2. What the hell happened to Steven Spielberg? He used to do good films.
