Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Warhorse

This is topic Warhorse in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 12-22-2011, 05:01 PM:

Pretty damned good. Photography is excellent. Prob. won't be one of Spielbergs greatest but a take on WWI from a different perspective, see it.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 12-27-2011, 03:16 PM:

Looks like Flicka met Saving Private Ryan

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 12-27-2011, 05:03 PM:

Speaking about SAVING PVT RYAN, the sound mix for WARHORSE during the battle scenes reminded me of the 'Ryan' film. It was just as dynamic as the WW2 film. The music score by John Williams was very lovely and I would like to get the sound track cd.

-Claude

Posted by Carol May (Member # 4068) on 12-27-2011, 08:21 PM:

Not Flicka, but Lassie Come Home. Lassie taking a really, really long time to get home.

The scenery was indeed beautiful, but so many scenes could have been cut without losing any of the story, this should easily have come in under two hours.

Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 12-27-2011, 09:17 PM:

quote: Carol May
Lassie taking a really, really long time to get home.

Carol- that was hilarious !

Posted by Keegan O'Brien (Member # 6539) on 01-01-2012, 05:40 PM:

CINEMA: Regal Valley River 15 & IMAX (Eugene, Oregon)
AUDITORIUM: 8
PRESENTATION: NEC 2K DLP
PROBLEMS: None.
RATING: 91/100

The music, the set pieces, the cinematography... a fantastic spectacle. The story was heartwarming and well crafted, albeit still cliched and sometimes too sappy. The ending was the only thing about the film that I can say I really disliked.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 01-01-2012, 08:28 PM:

I saw a trailer for this movie and I was not interested because I don't care about horses. The dialog was mostly stuff like "Wow, that horse ran through a battlefield and didn't get shot. That horse must be extra special! Let's base our entire story around it!"

Suffice it to say I have no desire whatsoever to see this movie. They did a very poor job selling it to me with the trailer.

Posted by Keegan O'Brien (Member # 6539) on 01-01-2012, 10:37 PM:

Joe, I wasn't sold by the trailer either, but it ended up as one of my favorites of 2011.

Posted by Bill Enos (Member # 440) on 01-02-2012, 06:35 PM:

I don't think it's even close to being the best of the year, just better than average in a year of fairly lackluster pics.

Posted by Victor Liorentas (Member # 5272) on 01-02-2012, 07:04 PM:

Looks great in 35mm! May be the last New Speilberg film I ever handle.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-02-2012, 09:04 PM:

I saw this over at Landmark Bethesda on one of their smaller screens and even though I was too close to the screen for my taste, I was very impressed, the movie was better than his 'Tintin' Would like to see this again and hear it in 7.1 (if any theater in the DC area is in fact playing it as such).

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-15-2012, 09:19 PM:

It's doing great business here, as will just about any good movie with a horse in it.

We liked it a lot. The war scenes were impressive. I'd like to know how they got horses to do some of those stunts...or was it CG? Either way, pretty amazing. The sound mix was very good, great use of surrounds and low end.

The story was a little predictable but

Spoiler Alert - Click to Toggle
I loved the "way out" they devised for the horse when he was about to get 'put down.'

Cinematography was beautiful, as it is on any Spielberg film.

Four out of five for me. My wife liked it just as much.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-18-2012, 08:31 PM:

One thing I'm curious about: Why do some movies (including this one) have the title at the very beginning of the end credits of the movie? I remember "The Lion King" having this and I seem to remember it on some other Spielberg movies too. Why do they do that when the title has already been shown at the beginning?

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-18-2012, 09:23 PM:

It's the same reason some movies have similar scenes between certain points (commonly the beginning and the end, but not necessarily). It's a psychological trick that's supposed to make you unconsciously (and quickly) review everything that happened since the last time you saw that same scene.

Posted by Melanie Loggins (Member # 6454) on 01-19-2012, 08:11 PM:

My 8 year-old wants to see this. She's a pretty sophisticated movie-watcher, but she is, after all, 8. Is this okay for a kid?

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-19-2012, 09:26 PM:

quote: Melanie Loggins
My 8 year-old wants to see this. She's a pretty sophisticated movie-watcher, but she is, after all, 8. Is this okay for a kid?

There's nothing offensive in it, but the horse mistreatment scenes might be disturbing if she loves horses. Plus, it's 2.5 hours long and might be boring for an 8-year-old.

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 01-31-2012, 11:34 AM:

What I find amusing about the older crowd for Warhorse is that they often come out to the lobby unable to watch the war scenes citing the death and mistreatment of the horses...... but say nothing about all the soldiers that are being killed and maimed.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 01-31-2012, 11:44 AM:

I think everybody knows that a person getting killed and maimed in a war movie is "just acting."

But there are still memories or stories of animals actually being mistreated in movies, so when you combine that with the amazing special effects of today, people have a hard time believing that the animals are "just acting" too.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 01-31-2012, 12:44 PM:

In general I think a lot of people are more bothered and even offended by mistreatment of domestic animals than they are when it comes to abuse or harm against a person. We often see animals as being innocent and defenseless in many ways to the whims of a human being. A grown adult man at least has some resources to defend himself or be smart enough to not get in a bad situation in the first place.

Normal people have a barrier of morality that stops them from doing cruel things to animals. Those that do get their jollies from hurting animals have a screw loose. For instance, serial killers often start out killing animals before they move up to killing people.

It's terrible when something bad happens to a person. However, people (in this country) typically volunteer to serve in the military. They know there is at least some risk they're going to end up in harm's way. They made the choice to be there.

The same thing applies to some violent crimes. Some of the shootings that do take place are often between people in street gangs or involved in the illegal drug trade or another criminal activity. It's a tragedy when a young man is gunned down, but if he's running in a gang it's hard to feel sorry for him.

One thing that gets my goat worse than animal abuse is child abuse. Again, kids are largely innocent and defenseless against the whims of corrupted adults.

In a roundabout way I guess this gets down to the "pick on some one your own size" thing. People who commit acts of violence and exploitation against smaller, weaker people or do those acts to animals are cowardly bastards.