Title pretty much gives away the plot
Apr. 21st, 2012 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_deep_magicFor those of you who were not privileged to my Twitter-spewing this evening, I watched War Horse. I'm not generally a fan of either war movies or horse movies (never did go through the "I want a pony" phase as a child), so I knew going in that it wasn't going to be my cup of tea, but it was entertaining enough. Pretty much what you'd expect from a big-budget, Oscar bait movie. But did anyone else notice...
...that just about every sympathetic character who came in contact with the horse subsequently experienced horrible misfortune? British soldiers Loki and Sherlock (sorry, can't be arsed to look up character names): immediately killed in battle. Two German kids: executed for desertion. Little French girl: dead. Her grandfather: had his livelihood stolen from him and later presumably spent his entire life savings to buy back the only connection he had to his dead granddaughter, only to give that away, too, likely ending up penniless and alone. The only ones who got away clean were that annoying kid who owned him in the first place and the two soldiers who cut the horse out of the barbed wire. And I sincerely expected them to go through all that only to have the German guy shoot the English guy dead as soon as the horse was free.
The movie didn't seem to realize that the "miraculous horse" was a deadly curse upon anyone who took care of it. Feel-good movie of the year, right there.
Love the pointy German helmets, though. Perhaps a touch impractical, but an effective way of saying "don't piss me off or I will skewer you, rhinoceros-style, with my hat."
...that just about every sympathetic character who came in contact with the horse subsequently experienced horrible misfortune? British soldiers Loki and Sherlock (sorry, can't be arsed to look up character names): immediately killed in battle. Two German kids: executed for desertion. Little French girl: dead. Her grandfather: had his livelihood stolen from him and later presumably spent his entire life savings to buy back the only connection he had to his dead granddaughter, only to give that away, too, likely ending up penniless and alone. The only ones who got away clean were that annoying kid who owned him in the first place and the two soldiers who cut the horse out of the barbed wire. And I sincerely expected them to go through all that only to have the German guy shoot the English guy dead as soon as the horse was free.
The movie didn't seem to realize that the "miraculous horse" was a deadly curse upon anyone who took care of it. Feel-good movie of the year, right there.
Love the pointy German helmets, though. Perhaps a touch impractical, but an effective way of saying "don't piss me off or I will skewer you, rhinoceros-style, with my hat."
