War Horse, a drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and released on December 25, 2011, is based on the 1982 children’s novel by British writer Michael Morpurgo and the 2007 stage adaptation of the same name. Like any good children’s story a large amount of time was spent getting to know the star of the movie “Joey” and his human trainer Albert played by Jeremy Irvine. The movie offers a loving account of the pair bonding and experiencing the misfortunes of life before World War I with drama that will tug at your heart strings with Spielberg’s customary flair.
Albert enlists to serve in WWI after his beloved Joey is sold to the cavalry. Albert’s hopeful journey takes him out of England across Europe as the war rages on, and ultimately back to Joey before the movie concludes with a peaceful ride home. Joey has quite a journey of his own winning hearts along the way back to Albert, yet most everyone he becomes connected to in the movie dies. With impossibility upon impossibility, Joey is given the supernatural ability of his own survival without developing a substantial lameness or life-ending problem.
Falling a little flat on the movie spectrum for this horse lover, War Horse is a long and bumpy ride through the trials and sufferings of the people and horses involved with WWI. War Horse has viewers rooting for the horse as he is certainly the hero of the film. The scenery, for the most part, is beautiful and the movie embodies persistence, courage and survival – all skills every horse lover needs. The winning aspect of the movie is the equine-human friendship and love that horse lovers can identify with. War Horse did leave me a little empty thinking about all the lost lives, both human and equine, along the way to a peaceful ride home. Perhaps it was the “war” and not the “horse” I did not care for.
War Horse Fun Facts:
Fourteen different horses were used as Joey - eight of them portraying him as an adult, four as a colt and two as foals.
Four horses played Topthorn – the other main equine character in the film.
Equine artist Ali Bannister was responsible for the hair and make-up of the horses as well as the drawings that were featured in the film. An equine makeup team worked with her for dyeing the coats and markings added to ensure continuity of each animal.
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