War Horse ~ A Review

This picture is my favourite. x)

Hey everyone! So I watched War Horse last week and thought I'd do a review on it. I loved it:) So the basic storyline is:

Dartmoor,1914: To his wife's dismay farmer Narracott buys a thoroughbred horse rather than a plough animal, but when his teenaged son Albert trains the horse and calls him Joey, the two become inseparable. When his harvest fails, the farmer has to sell Joey to the British cavalry and he is shipped to France where, after a disastrous offensive he is captured by the Germans and changes hands twice more before he is found, caught in the barbed wire in No Man's Land four years later and freed. He is returned behind British lines where Albert, now a private, has been temporarily blinded by gas, but still recognizes his beloved Joey. However, as the Armistice is declared Joey is set to be auctioned off. After all they have been through will Albert and Joey return home together? Written by don @ minifie-1 (from IMDB)

Will they return home together?

Keep reading. 

Albert watches Joey grow from a foal to a beautiful horse. He learns to ride him. There's a funny scene where he overtakes the snobby landlord's son in his flash car......and ends up falling off.

Albert is a very determined and persevering boy. He trains Joey against all odds, so that his family can keep their farm and he wants to enlist as soon as Joey is sold to the army. He promises Joey that they will be together again. They are very close friends. Both go through incredible dangers and hardships on the battlefields of WW1.

Rosie, Albert's mother, is Rosa Hubermann Millie Warne amazing. She's a good mother and wife and worries about their future but she is incredibly strong and brave. Albert's father Ted drinks to forget his horrible experiences in the Boer War, and while Albert at first despises his father for this, after he stops Ted from shooting the (then useless) Joey, Rosie explains to Albert about his father's past.

Ted Narracott is addicted to buying things from auctions. I felt really sorry for him because he had to live with terrible memories from the war in Africa and refused to wear the medals he earned for bravery.


Oh and these two? They were amazing! And for the life of me I can't remember their names. I suppose I could look them up, but I'll just call them Tom and Benedict. Anyway, so Joey becomes Tom's horse and Benedict is the general, I think. I've only seen it once. Tom is very good at drawing and sends Albert some amazing drawings of Joey. So they go into battle, charging into a campful of Germans in the middle of their morning shaving sessions and chaos ensues. SPOILER Tom dies END OF SPOILER and SPOILER Benedict is taken prisoner and so is Joey, technically speaking. Since Joey has been trained as a farm horse and not an army mount he is used by the Germans to draw their hospital wagon instead of getting shot.


Then we get to a very sad part. Two of the Germans are brothers Gunther (left) and Michael (who is only 14 but lied about his age so he could join the army, and really, how could they not tell he was nowhere near 18? I mean, look at the part where Albert tries to join and Tom promptly says, "Ha, you can't you're not old enough..." and Albert looks waaay older than Michael. I don't know, whatever.)
Anyway, Gunther is the one who is told to stay behind and take care of the horses while Michael marches off to battle with the rest of the soldiers. However, Gunther takes two horses (Joey is one of them) and quite literally pulls Michael out of the line and takes him away because he promised his mother he would keep his little brother safe. They hide in a windmill, get found by the soldiers, and SPOILER get shot END OF SPOILER.


Joey and Topthorn ( I think that's his name) are found the next day by a French girl named Emilie who brings them back to the house where she lives with her grandfather and convinces him to let her keep them, because she is the boss. She reminds me so much of Cosette from Les Miserables (the book). She renames the two horses after boys who broke her heart. On the surface she seems a little bit spoilt, but she suffers from a disease that makes her bones weak and her parents have been killed for some reason, so you can hardly blame her grandfather for spoiling her. She hides Joey and Topthorn in her room to prevent them being found by the Germans, but eventually the two horses are confiscated "to pull artillery until they die."


So Albert finally joins the army along with his friend Andrew and the landlord's son David. They are in the trenches at the Somme preparing for an attack. Albert keeps a picture of Joey in his pocket. Andrew is ordered to stay in the trench and shoot any soldier who turns back. Albert and the others charge into no-man's-land. When two cowards return to the trench, Andrew can't bring himself to shoot them and dashes after the others. They make it to an abandoned German trench where a gas bomb explodes. SPOILER Andrew dies END OF SPOILER and Albert is temporarily blinded but her survives.


Joey, on the Germans' side, is spooked and tries to run to safety but gets caught in barbed wire in no-man's-land. The next exchange between a German and a British soldier as they free the wounded horse is both funny and sad. Neither of them are bad men, They are simply fighting eachother because their countries are at war and neither had a choice. The Brit wins the coin toss for Joey. "That is the face of my Kaiser," says the German, "and I do not think he is pleased with me." The man and the horse return to the British camp. Albert, lying in the hospital with his eyes bandaged, hears Joey and gives an owl call he used to do to call him, and Joey comes to him.


He proves Joey is his by describing his markings and Joey is allowed to live and be treated for his barbed wire wounds. When the war end, the army horses are to be auctioned instead of returning to England. The men club their money together to help Albert buy Joey back, but Emilie's grandfather turns up and outbids him. Albert tries to but Joey from him. The old man tells him about Emilie and that she died. However, he gives Joey back to Albert and the pair return home.


The last scene,where Albert is reunited with his parents, is beautiful. But in the book it mentions that he got married, and I wish they'd put that in. I guess it was meant to be mainly about him and Joey though. So what did I think of this movie. I thought it was amazing, well scripted, beautifully acted, and any horse movie pleases me :-) I loved it. I definitely cried at some points. If you haven't watched War Horse, do so promptly. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen.