Movie Review: War Horse

The story in a nutshell: boy finds horse, boy loses horse, boy finds horse in the midst of a bloody great war. The boy is Albert, pictured above. He names the horse Joey and "raises him from a pup" as someone late in the movie says. Albert's father had paid an outrageous sum for the horse after his landlord bid him up. Albert's mother was aghast, he was supposed to be buying a plow horse, not a thoroughbred. But Albert manages to get Joey to plow the rocky field so the turnips can be planted. But eventually the horse has to be sold to the Army to pay the rent. And Joey goes off to war.

What follows is a somewhat improbable story of Joey loose in the chaos of France during the First World War. Improbable perhaps, but beautifully drawn and written. And what more can any movie ask for, that you fall in love with the leading character? And make no doubt about it, Joey is the main character. He appears in just about every scene. 21-year-old Jeremy Irvine, who plays Albert, probably has the second most screen time but he's missing all through the middle of the film.

The audience laughed out loud during the occasional funny scene (like when the little French girl is trying to teach Joey to jump), and cried during the sad scenes (like when Joey and Albert get parted) and audibly moaned during several painful scenes which I won't go into so I don't spoil it for you.

I highly recommend this movie, and by all means, take the kids. You might not want to take very young kids though. Part of this movie is, what seems like, a pretty realistic depiction of a charge out of a trench. It was pretty intense.