Review of the 2011 film 'War Horse'

This film completely passed me by when it was on in the cinema, which is a bit of a shame really. The month it was out, I went see Sherlock Holmes 2 (brilliant fun), and Haywire (immensely disappointing), and didn't even notice War Horse until the oscar nominations were released. But given that I was a huge Black Beauty fan as a kid, I was glad of the eventual opportunity to watch it.

War Horse, is, uh... about a horse. In the war (first world, to be precise). A farmer in devon buys a rather beautiful unbroken thoroughbred colt when he was supposed to buy a workhorse, and his son falls in love with the animal, names him Joey, and trains him up for riding and ploughing. There's a rather endearing horse-training montage. But then the harvest fails, and the war comes, and the farmer has to sell the horse to get enough money to make his rent. The story then follows the horse across Europe during the war, and follows the boy as he too goes to war.

A film about a horse is generally problematic, because you have to anthropomorphize the horse enough to make it a watchable main character, while not making it so humaized so as to be unbelievable. In this, I think War Horse does a lot better than Black Beauty ever did, if only because it didn't have the irritating narration over the top. This film proved that you can get a horse to fill the screen without trying to give it a voice, which I liked. In the course of the story, the very well-trained horse demonstrates just a little too much self-awareness, and it's a little twee in places, but I kind of expected that, and they didn't overdo it, which was a real risk. I would say that horse films are never quite the same when you know any horse body-language; the image of a horse running in terror doesn't have quite the same impact when you see how happy and alert he looks.

The story also manages to get across some of the horror of war, albeit from a horse's perspective for much of it, and a slightly sanitized version from the boy's.

As is probably inevitable in a story of this nature, the human characters get slightly short-changed, but some of them do manage to shine through. The main character,  Albert (Jeremy Irvine) gives a spirited and cute performance, but his character is a little overly fanciful for my taste, and while I appreciate his fanciful nature, it seems like he's always a little removed from the events he's taking part in. The supporting cast, however, are almost without exception brilliant, from the farmer and his wife (Peter Mullen and Emily Watson), to the cavalry Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) and Major Stewart (Benedict Cumberbatch) who occupy a short, but very stirring section at the beginning of the war. Each of them brings a very different character to life for their segment, and makes Joey's journey more believable as they drift through the story.

I suppose my major criticism of the film was the lack of the feeling of the passage of time. The prologue covers the three or four years as the horse grows from a foal to a saleable colt, which is fine. The rest of the film covers a similar length of time (the span of the war), but there wasn't really a sense of how long Joey spends in each of his stopovers; did he spend a year in the English cavalry before being captured by the Germans to haul an ambulance cart, or a month? Was he on a farm in France for two months, or two years? The film makes it look like he spends barely a few days in each scenario, and then suddenly four years have passed.

But that's a small criticism. This was one of those genuinely good films that you can actually enjoy. The rare 'oscar material' piece that actually stands up as a good piece of fiction, rather than just an art piece for the benefit of film critics. But then, you'd expect Stephen Spielberg to do a good job.

I'll finish this review there, but I would like to mention briefly that this film does pretty well with its historically accurate female characters... but I think that's a blog for another time.

Review of the 2008 film the Incredible Hulk

So, I picked a great time to think about reviving my review blog. I had a relaxing day in, including an opportunity to watch a film. I recently got the Avengers box set, and the only film in it I hadn't seen was the Incredible Hulk.

I knew it hadn't been as well reviewed as some of the others, but I wanted to see it anyway. Mild spoiler warnings ahead, folks.

Well, the start was okay. It took the interesting approach of joining Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) several months (maybe even years) after the accident that leaves him with his impressive green alter-ego. I think just about everyone who'd bother to watch a Hulk film knows his back-story, so it was a good way to get to the part of the story they were trying to tell..

The opening credits give a brief run through of Hulk's genesis, and then as soon as they fade out, we cut to Bruce in Brazil, working in a bottling factory and trying to cope with his inner demon. It hints at relationships at the past, Elizabeth “Betty” Ross (Liv Tyler) and General Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt), but leaves most of that exposé for later.

So far so good?

Well, the first twenty minutes were actually reasonably promising in some ways, which just made it all the more galling when it fell apart completely later. The initial problem was with Bruce; I saw the man struggling with the Hulk, but there wasn't any hint of the brilliant scientist. Having seen Avengers Assemble (ie Hulk done well) I really felt this absence. And then there was the General, who's after Bruce, to try and unlock the secret of the Hulk to make more of them. Well, as motivations go, it's a little shaky, but we'll go with it.

He sends in a hit squad who have no clue what they're up against, you know, for fun? There's an entertaining if mindless free-running chase sequence, ending with the inevitable appearance of the Hulk, and the military's humiliating defeat. The hit squad is led by Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who rather than being put off by the fact that his squad is torn to shreds, is instead entranced by the Hulk's power, and decides to go after such power himself.

Motivations just get shakier as time goes on.

Bruce is the only one that really make sense in the film; he's in touch with a mysterious scientist “Mr Blue” who claims to have found a cure for Bruce's condition. Fine. But, in search of this, he walks to America. Yes, that's right. Walks. From Brazil. (And this is about the point where I started to go “really? REALLY?”)

While trying to find some data about the original accident, he runs back into his old love interest, Betty. Her characterization is paper thin, and I felt like she was on sedatives. She isn't given the luxury of a motivation, even a shaky one. In terms of Liv Tyler's roles, this made Arwen look like the Princess of Good Character Development. Her one sympathetic moment in the film is when she snaps into a rage at a taxi driver.

Characterization was weak, motivations poorly explained, and plot was just a way of getting from one fight scene to the next. So, was the action worth it?

I'm a fan of mindless action movies, and I like fight scenes, and random explosions as much as the next slightly crazed geek, but the action sequences could not make up for the film's failings. Far from the big green Rage Monster, Hulk actually looked too restrained and controlled at times. He tears the army apart systematically, and then protects Betty when she Does Stupid. The fight scenes were mostly iterations on 'Hulk throws heavy object,' and 'Hulk hits heavy object with other heavy object.' Then there are at least a couple of occasions where they could have easily avoided a confrontation with the Hulk, and didn't because of poor decision making and worse pattern recognition.

The final battle sequence is lacklustre. Rather than rage-ful, the Hulk looks rather bored and unimpressed by the whole thing. I don't blame him. Oh, and he claps his hands out to put out a fire. Really? REALLY?

The last nail in the coffin for me was that through all of this, the film seemed to take itself far too seriously. When you're acting all serious business with crazed marines and THE HULK around, you can't then throw in the old crowd-pleasing lines without it jarring slightly. And it jarred quite a lot.

So, I'm going to relegate this to lowest-tier Marvel along with Iron Man 2. Whatever happened, Joss Whedon Fixed the Hulk in Avengers Assemble, so I think we'll all be happier if we pretend this didn't happen and move on with our lives.  

Resurrection

So, I've been thinking for a little while about resurrecting this old blog, but harnessing all three of the Rs, rather than just the reviewing aspect. I hope to include random thoughts to share with the world, and some stuff about my writing as well as my reading and viewing habits.

This might all fall apart again next April when I'm going to be away for a while, but for now, I'll try and post at least a couple of times a month. Let's see how this goes.