Movie Review: War Horse

I don't do a lot of movie reviews as I assume most people reading here are not interested in my thoughts. However this is one I felt compelled to put out there in public. War Horse had all of the makings of a movie we should like. It was relatively family friendly. It had beautiful horses. It was produced by Steven Spielberg. It was nominated for a bunch of awards including being nominated for Best Motion Picture by the Academy, so it was considered by many to be one of the best films of 2011. It was one of the few trailers we saw in a theater that really caught my eye. So I was really looking forward to seeing it and we watched in last night. I can sum it up for you in one word:

Horrible

Just absolutely a terrible movie. A movie about a horse by people who apparently have never seen or interacted with an actual horse. It was, even by Hollywood standards, completely unrealistic. Scenes moved from one idea to another willy nilly. The characters were shallow and silly. The horse was clean as a whistle, neatly groomed and obviously well fed for most of World War I. The Germans are EVIL in case you missed it. The main character Albert has a friend who mostly just stands around grinning like a buffoon. None of the characters were interesting, either for being the bad guys or for being a good guy. I just wanted each painful scene to end only to find the next scene was even worse. Ugh it was sheer misery and the end was so over the top cheesy with dramatic music, ridiculously CGI'd background scenery and faux emotion that it left my jaw hanging open.

Save the buck you might have spent at Redbox.