War Horse

The remarkable story of friendship between a horse and a man in times of war.To his wife's dismay Ted Narracot bought a colt which is not a ploughing one. Albert Narracot their son asks them to leave the colt to his care and he promises them that he will make it to plough the land.He names the horse Joey.There starts the story. Albert with his friend Andrew Eatson trains the horse .

Albert with great effort and to the astonishment of the neighbors made Joey to plough the stony land to plant turnips.His mother Rose gives him Ted's medal which he received during Second Boer war in South Africa.The stormy weather destroys all the turnip field and the hopes of  Ted paying the overdue to landlord also fails.Forced , Ted sells Joey to Captain Nicholls who is an officer in duty as war nears, without informing to Albert.

When Albert comes to know about the absence of Joey , he runs and begs Captain Nicholls to return Joey to him but Captain says he will take care of it well and if everything goes well he will return Joey back to Albert and takes Joey to France to fight against German.Captain Nicholls dies at the battle and the Germans takes Joey with them.

The Germans trains Joey for military purpose , Joey makes friendship with Topthorn,anothor thorough bred.Then there is a story of Gunther brothers who uses Joey and Topthorn to escape to Italy and  from going to war.But the Germans finds and kill them.Emily, the farm girl finds the horses and starts liking them.She is living with her grand father.One day the German soldiers arrives and takes all the foods in their house but some how she saves the horses. But she loses both of them to Germans when she rides Joey for the first time.


Joey survives the war ordeals but Topthorn succumbs. Joey runs into no man's land and entangles in barbed wire.To help Joey gets out of the wire, Collin ,British soldier and Peter, a German Soldier comes out  of their respective trenches and meets in the middle.Using cutters they frees Joey and decides who will take Joey with them by tossing the coin.Collin wins and takes Joey to the military hospital, in the mean time Albert temporarily loses his sight at war front.He too is in the military hospital. The rest is the happy ending...

Around 8 million horses died during the war 1914-1918, thats why this particular story of survival and reunion is amazing and heart felt. This movie is a adaption of the navel "War Horse" by Michael Morpurgo.Steven Spielberg once again proved how good a directer he is. He is really a master story teller. One particular scene i liked most -when the soldiers helps Joey to come out of the entangled barbed wire,very emotional.

The horror of war was shot beautifully specially the rampage of Germans against British and Germans aristocracy against their own people .Emily and her grand father's part was told brilliantly.Jeremy Irvine as Albert was wonderful ,he is a stage artist and it proves to be a very handy one for this role.Peter Mullan as Ted,Emily Watson as Rose.Celine Buckens as Emilie were done their job to perfection. But the highlight of the movie is the Joey's performance,simply superb.

I wondered how come animal rights activists did not object to certain scenes in this movie but when i researched more i found out the reason.Those scenes were created by using animatronics technology. In fact  the team used puppet to shot the scenes where Joey entangled in barbed wire.

Read this for more info about animatronics team's work in Work Horse.

Music by John Williams was awesome, he captures the feelings, the emotions... Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski was breathtaking.Overall a great movie and must watch.War Horse is a strong contender for this year's Oscar.

Check out the puppet team's Ted talk below :