Well, what do you know. Steven Spielberg's 'War Horse' is a stunningly bad movie, from beginning to the end. Is it beautifully made? Sure, it is Spielberg, after all. Does it matter? Not one single bit. Because from the amazingly bad plot concept to its ultimately pointless conclusion, this is Spielberg at his worst. It is one of the Worst movies of the year.

I do not recommend to go see this movie, I expected much more from a Spielberg direction. Bad plot, unexplained solutions... Where is Private Ryan?.... The scenery is indeed beautiful however it does not make up for the bad script and painful shortcuts. No, No and No.

They really should have called the "Bore Horse"... How long was it? It seemed like 3 long hours. There were 3 or four good scenes but the rest of the movie dragged on and on. I hate to beat a dead horse but how did this movie review so well?

It's so laughably bad it's hard to imagine a leading director made it. The laudatory reviews are completely perplexing. As some one commented already it really is a bizarre combo of "Black Beauty" and " All Quiet on the Western Front." Just read an interview where Spielberg said it's a family movie! Not sure what family enjoys machine gunning lines of soldiers, deadly gas attacks and impaling on barbed wire? No way should kids see this.
He has made some very interesting movies but subtlety is not in his play book. The plot machinations are laughable swinging from idyllic country to ravaged war zones, and almost every scene is way over the top in terms of emotional manipulation.… Expand

Good cinematography, weak story, lazy screenplay, and lackluster direction -- a disappointment. The film has a feel of an outline of a story being made into a film. Animal cruelty further contributes to the awkwardness of the film.

A bizarre mix of good and bad scenes. Some scenes are beautifully shot and very well paced. Others are predictable and schmaltzy. There's also infuriating censorship throughout the whole movie. God forbid we see someone get shot in a WAR movie. This movie makes me wish Spielberg would just ditch the horse, make the movie rated R, and do a war movie that actually has emotional resonance. It's hard for me to care about a damn horse when there are thousand of humans dying all around it.… Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. While the cinematography might be excellent, the story telling is downright awful. I can't believe that people have rated this movie so high. Lets take a look at a few of the absurdities:


The horse is bought by a farmer who "knowingly" will not be able to pay the rent on his farm because of it.Then when the horse will not take the yoke he is about to shoot it... rather than sell it and pay his rent!

The horse is trained by his son who insists on plowing uphill through rocks rather than removing them. Then the neighbours come over to "watch" rather than helping remove them! Then the horse pulls right through a bolder, strong horse strong plough?

Off to war where the cavalry do a surprise charge through a German camp, only to end up facing German machine gun fire set up on the edge of the forest pointing into their own camp?

Off to the little girl's farm where they manage to hide two horses in the upper bedroom with soldiers ransacking the place, and they don't make a sound...

The old man gives her a saddle and she can instantly ride like a pro, but rides over a hill and across a river into the German army, which nobody heard coming!

All I can say is wow, this really is a classic, critic's choice, full of horse stuff.… Expand

Simply awful film. Nothing more than a well polished (visually) made for TV movie. If the horses had spoken it would actually have been a better story!

One of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. I am embarrassed that I spent money to see it. It was so unspeakably bad. I am shocked that the man who directed Band of Brothers was able to churn out a war-related that was so foul that I was holding back laughter throughout the movie. Just horrendous.

A really tedious, saccharine, obvious, bland, boring, grossly sentimental attempt at a throwback to the "good old days" of sweeping Hollywood emotional epics. Just terrible and I just don't get how some well respected critics gave this film glowing reviews. The prevailing emotion while watching alternated between "wow, this really stinks" and "please let it end"! If you want to see a "big" movie with broad emotion go see Hugo, which really is good.… Expand

It's a collage of two films that don't mix, Akin to A mason jar of Makers Mark bourbon blended up with twinkies. Why did they make " Warhorse" ? Why did they spend $80,000,000 Dollars ? Who is this movie aimed at? "American Velvet" meets " Deathcamp For Dobbin" ? - not a good mix for children ; Don't take your kids, - really. "Lassie Come Home " Meets " Saving Private Ryan, the ghastly parts"
- Not a good mix for adults. Don't take your friends who just want a holiday film

Why, then, was this film shoved out the door on Christmas day?

The sets are nice, the effects are nice, the opening is nice.. the ending is all heartwarming;
- It's only the middle two hours are kind of a mess.

Make up your mind, guys, why not just make two films.… Expand

CGI horses... That just about sums it up. It's very hard to have empathy for a CGI horse so I went through the movie not really caring much about anything especially when the writing and directing itself is aimed at jelly fish and not humans. Besides that... I haven't read the book but why is the whole thing so ridiculous? It's fiction yes but at least have some integrity. This is not classic Spielberg, god knows what this is and the news of upcoming awards just prove that critics kow tow to Spielberg now due to the fact when he actually did good films, the awards treated him like crap. In the end this not most of us. It's for people who love 3D Studion max who hate actual live scenery and animals.

I will score it a point for amazing CG work though. If you didn't know what to watch out for, you'd think that they were real. The acting is above par and the score rather grand. So three points in total.… Expand

Very slow starting, then picks up in the middle and towards the end. Movie has a clumsy pace. There are some great acting here and there, but overall for me it fell rather flat. Historically, the writers could have done much more research, as I was watching for more of the allies, but apparently WWI only had germans and brits fighting eachother!

Spielberg movies have to hook you from the start or you're going to feel like a sourpuss at the positivity party. I felt like the latter during this movie. At times, the sentimentality could be cringe-inducing and the dramatic developments were so infused with nostalgia that I started to get uncomfortable. All movies are manipulative in some way, but this one is so obviously intent on making you emotional that it's creepy. Plus, I'd just seen the documentary Buck, and it was hard not to think of the horses being directed to hit their marks while we're expected to view them as free-thinking characters.… Expand

If you like Lifetime Movie Network movies, you will love War Horse. I hate them; they insult my intelligence. This movie was a huge disappointment, and I left the theatre before it was over. Very poor acting; plot was corny and trite.

This has to be one of the worst films I have ever seen. Total lack of action from the first minute and even the horses acting was sloppy. I want my monet back NOW

This really is a bad film, Catherine Cookson meets Walt Disney with a bit of James Herriott and Heidi for good measure. The result, appallingly embarrassing sugary script which annoys from start to finish, combined with an over the top musical score and hideous pseudo German/French/Belgian accents. Just whereabouts on the Somme was this working windmill in beautiful pasture supposed to be? Spielberg should really have been made this film for children. Saving grace, some good cinematography, but little else. Must appeal to some though, given the blubbing in nearby seats.… Expand

I really hated this movie, mind numbing saccharin rubbish!! It encapsulates everything that is wrong with mainstream American cinema. It takes an adapted young adult book that enjoyed serious success as a stage adaptation in the UK, rapes it and turns into a great chunk of sickly American cheese that will be lapped up by the typical cinema goer who has had their senses dulled by a lifetime of movie drivel. Sadly for them they will not recognise that the script is ridiculous and immature, the plot is seriously underdeveloped, the characters are one dimensional and improbable, many scenes are silly with no understanding of the WWI era or effort to even mask their unlikelihood (e.g the horse making no noise in the windmill while the Germans search not to mention the nice clean Brady Bunch farm) and the unmitigated offence of wasting top actors talents. All this is accentuated with John Williams contemporary score that blows any early 20th century credibility out of the water as well as the rehashed snippets of earlier work (Indiana Jones theme) that pop out if you listen carefully. I found the music as insulting as the rest of this woefully crappy offering and ended up becoming angry that my time was being wasted watching it. I stopped watching when it got to the auction and all the characters the horse had come across miraculously converged in the yard. Just stupid. Spielberg should be heartily ashamed of himself. I truly hated the hatchet job he did on the timeless classic War of the Worlds but at least I got to the end of that. I couldn't finish this. If you have any movie integrity do not see this horrendous offering.… Expand

Considering the 'budget', what a disappointment. Too saccharine, with shades of 'Gone With the Wind' over-the-top drama. Great story potential, but Spielberg failed to make this work - on child or adult level.

Who is this movie made for? It is all over the place. I can see how the play would be good however Speilberg stretches out the exposition at the beginning like a freshman film student then he ends it like the expert he is. Go for the last 30 minutes and you will be fine, everything before that just drags and is inconsistent. Speilberg I'm wondering is becoming Altman and Kobrick... when they lost their connection with the audience.… Expand

A trashy cliché. Donâ

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This definitely is not a war-movie as some claim. Only interesting scene in the movie was the conversation in "No-man's Land" between the British and German soldier.… Expand

Yet another movie that uses the backdrop of war to bring guy to what otherwise would be a boring and predictable chick flick. The directing seems fair, as well as most of the acting, but the story and editing seems to really make the movie fall apart at the seams. The movie blazes through WWI where years seem to pass by over night, with no exposition. There are no battle scenes at all in the movie, something that I would not think possible in a movie called War Horse. Instead we are given scenes with soldiers either running from a battle or hiding while being attacked. There are some exceptions where there is some offensive fighting on the part of the protagonists but they could be condensed into a 30 second clip.… Expand

A huge piece of cheesy cheese. Overly sentimental garbage. Tries playing on the heart strings of the audience but it just made me wonder when this pile of nothing would end. It's wall to wall piling up of stereotypical characters in the human rolls and a wonder horse with super intelligence, insightful and a pedagogy ability to teach other horses. If only they had let this same horse both write the manuscript and direct this movie it might have turned out to be something actually worth watching...… Expand

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the performance of "the boy" was.. well, i laughed at the theater couple of times.. beside that, very bad and boring movie, period.

This film is utterly unsatisfying.
Not even slightly entertaining, some of the performances were utterly laughable, and the script was horrifyingly bad.

Boring, sugar coated rubbish. I was waiting for Skippy the Bush Kangaroo to tell Albie that Joey had been captured, but not to worry as Lassie had been sent on a suicide mission to rescue him. I thought they could have cast Inspector Rex as the evil German commandant. More of a G rated Walt Disney feel good film than anything else.

The best way to disribe this film is sunday afternoon family entertainment. A bit like old yeller and lasie but then with a horse. It's all very clean and uplifting (read sickening) as you would expect from a movie distributed by Walt Disney. For me this doesn't have to win any of it's 4 Oscar nominations as there are many better movies out there!

Starts off strong, but changes directions prematurely before any significant attachment can be made to the main character(s). After the first 30 minutes, the next 90 are unbearable as one pointless tragedy transitions into the next making it seem like a bad rendition of Forrest Gump for horses. The ending saves this from being a complete flop, but it's obvious that whoever wrote this truly only worked out the beginning and the end of the script by the time it was green lit.… Expand

Spielberg's sappy and way over the top production created in a movie which was barely watchable. Knowing the story , I was ready for some sap and suspension of reality, but his approach almost turned it into a farce. What a disappointment!