Wednesday, December 28, 2011

War Horse Fail


MY GOD. That movie was just awfulness wrapped in fail sauce. (Though Jeremy Irvine could be rather dreamy if I get past the fact that he really was a drag in this movie)

I was SO pissed it fell short of my above average standards and did not even come close to living up to the massive hype that was created around it. Rotten tomatoes gave it a 75%, which I feel is severely overstating the watchability of this movie, especially if you are a horse person. Which is most of us here.

All of my horse friends were not even excited for it and I defended the movie, saying its going to be so good, you wait and see! But no, Speilburg, you made me look like an ass. Thanks a ton.

So for those of you who havent yet suffered through this gooey movie, please spare yourselves. I can't decide which was worse, watching him train the young Joey with earnest conversation, the fact that they treated him like a dog ("Stay Joey, stay!" or, "Come, Joey!"), the absurd acting, extreme sappiness or unrealistic scenes. Like seriously, any horse that runs into barbed wire fencing will be slashed to bits instantly, NOT able to run through two more and drag them in full gallop. ABSURD.

The horses who played Joey were freakin' gorgeous though and I really want them. Stacey told me the main one was an OTTB, even more to love! I get irritated easily though at the fact that they didnt even try to keep his tail the same when they used different horses. I might be the only one who noticed/cared since a) I'm obsessed with tails b) I'm a horse person, but they should at least attempt to make them all generally look the same. I mean, I KNOW they painted socks on some of them; not hard to tell, but to go from one horse having this GORGEOUS long, thick tail and in the next scene its scrawny and thin, then back to full...I'm just like WTF!! The cinematography was sweet though I guess and I loved the scene where he was galloping through the battlefield, until he hit the barbed wire...
These were cool stills though...


My mom loved it though, so maybe only horse people find it ridiculous.

Speilburg says,In this day, people don't have exposure, they don't have interaction with horses,” he said. “I hope this movie makes people appreciate the innate and natural intelligence of horses. And I also hope this movie brings an awareness to the plight of horses both after World War I and the plight today in a very sad turn of events in which the slaughtering of horses is being permitted for food as a renewed export industry, which makes us all very sad.”

Did any of you see it? What did you think?
.

We sheltered beneith their salt crusted hides.
They trusted our voices, laid down and died.
Those that were left
became dust on the shore.
Lest we forget, the perils of war.

9 comments:

  1. Awfulness wrapped in fail sauce?

    Best description ever.

    Not one that's likely to persuade me to go see it though. ;-)

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  2. Ok that's the vibe I've been getting, so I'm glad that other people feel the same way. Horses are so amazing; why do moviemakers feel the need to make them into oversized dogs, thus making them behave in ways horses would never in a million years behave, to make them 'likable'? Grrr.

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  3. Yep main pony was an OTTB named Finder. Pretty pony but such a simple movie that seemed like it was for kids. It doesn't help that it IS based on a children's novel set. I mean I can't hate it too much, I'll go watch anything about a horse but it wasn't amazing or anything. I went mainly because a friend of mine works in Hollywood and worked on set when they filmed in Virginia and then worked on the color in post production. I DID get a laugh when no one wanted a tb and they pointed to the Shire and said "You want THAT!" Hehe, Klein-1, Yankee-0. JK!!!

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  4. The book was really good, even if a bit absurd at times. I guess I will have to watch this movie as if I was a car-driving-only noob like the rest of the world. This was sad to hear, considering all the hype and potential awards around it.

    I do hope they make a movie out of the Snowman story.

    I guess I'll just have to stick with Seabiscuit as the best horse movie ever.

    Oh, and Miracle of the White Stallions. Very good and pretty realistic as far as the story of Patton aiding the Spanish Riding School in getting away from Russian hands and essentially saving the school and the breed.

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  5. This is why I don't watch horse movies. Because they are awful. A lot of my horse friends that have seen it are saying is is pretty bad. Some of my non-horse friends say I shouldn't see it because I will cry to much. I'm just sticking to my general rule that it is a horse movie so it will probobly get me angry so not worth watching.

    I agree with the poster above, Seabiscuit is the best horse movie out there.

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  6. Everybody at my barn was planning on going to see it. I haven't, and probably won't, but I find a vast majority of horsey movies to be filled with a sickening amount of ignorance. And even worse, I think some of them inspire non-horse people to go buy the prettiest little pony they can find (aka, the free or close to it, unhandled 2 y/o in some back yard breeder's shitty fence). And then someone gets kicked, dragged, trampled, crushed...

    I mean, not every non-horse person is that ignorant, but there's a special snowflake in every bunch.

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  7. Seabiscuit really is a phenomenal movie. Just marvelous :)

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  8. The first part with the training and conversations definitely sucked! I did like the rest of it though as long as I reminded myself that there are a lot of people who know nothing about horses and it is based on a children's book lol. Also I was impressed because they didn't make the horses fake neigh every ten seconds throughout the whole movie lol. That's my biggest pet peeve. So annoying. I've gotten over the whole using different horses because I know it's just something they have to do. They were beautiful horses anyway so I didn't mind hehe. But yeah I don't get my hopes up on horse movies because I know they just don't put that much effort into accuracies. Agree with Dressager, totally hope they make a movie about Snowman. :)

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