Movie Review: War Horse

War Horse (2011) 

Directed by Steven Spielberg 

Written by Lee Hall, Richard Curtis

Starring Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Peter Mullan, Jeremy Irvine 

Release Date December 25th, 2011 

Published December 25th, 2011

There is one truly great scene in Steven Speilberg's "War Horse." The scene involves the hero horse escaping from torture minded German soldiers, racing through a field covered in barbed wire. The horse manages to break through much of the barbed wire but eventually is taken down and looks to be dying a horrible death wrapped in barbed wire.

As the sun comes up British and German soldiers from opposite ends of this World War 1 battlefield see something moving in the middle of the battlefield and assume it may be a wounded soldier. White flags go up from both sides and a sentry is dispatched from each.

For a moment a tenuous peace is forged as two enemy soldiers work together to free the horse from the barbed wire. The dialogue, the acting and director Steven Speilberg's calm, observant style give this centerpiece scene in "War Horse" energy and excitement that is lacking in the rest of the film.

A Horse Named Joe

"War Horse" stars Jeremy Irvine as Albert, a farm boy with a loutish, drunken father (Peter Mullan) who brings home skinny horse more suited for racing than the plow horse he was supposed to purchase. Albert takes to the new horse and names it Joey.

When Albert's father sobers enough to realize what he's done he wants to shoot Joey. Albert and his mother (Emily Watson) manage to stop him at least long enough for Albert to try to teach Joey how to draw the plow over the rocky shoals of the family farmland.

Albert's task becomes a spectacle as their landlord, Mr. Lyons (David Thewlis) brings a crowd to watch what he expects will be a major failure. The plowing scenes are a solid piece of cinema; rousing and sympathetic but they are merely killing time until the major plot kicks in.

Separated by War

The major plot is World War 1 and Peter's father giving up Joey, against Albert's wishes, to the military cause. Joey becomes the property of Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) who promises to return Joey to Albert after the war. Sadly, Captain Nicholls underestimates the toll of the war ahead.

Will Joey be able to find his way back to Albert? Will Albert join the cause and search for Joey? Can either survive the horrors of the First World War? Good questions all and each has the potential to be very moving and entertaining.

"War Horse" is filled with potential mostly unrealized. Steven Speilberg's approach here is almost entirely homage with little of anything new or exciting. Individual scenes of "War Horse" capture Speilberg at his best but most of the film is a droning bore of tributes to War movies past.

Old School Meets New School

"War Horse" is the first film that Steven Speilberg edited digitally rather than with a traditional editing suite on the back of a flatbed truck. This move toward a more modern approach is somewhat ironic in that it is applied to one of the most old school movies of Speilberg's long and illustrious career.

"War Horse" is certainly not a bad movie but it's not a great movie either. The film will appeal to fans of old war movies as well as to fans of horse movies, a genre all its own. I recommend "War Horse" for the very particular group of fans I just mentioned; for everyone else "War Horse" shouldn't be your first choice until it arrives on DVD in 2012.

Movie Review Rocketman

Rocketman (2019) 

Directed by Dexter Fletcher 

Written by Lee Hall 

Starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Bryce Dallas Howard, Richard Madden

Release Date May 31st, 2019

Published May 30th, 2019 

Rocketman is one of my favorite experiences at the movies in some time. This dream of the life of Elton John won me over from the first moment and held me in rapt attention throughout the two hour plus runtime. I am a fan of Elton John’s music but I would not call myself a super fan, I wasn’t predisposed to love Rocketman in the ways some Elton fans undoubtedly were and yet, this review will likely come off as that of an Elton fanboy because I adored every moment of Rocketman. 

The first important thing to know about Rocketman is that it is not a straightforward, entirely linear biopic. On top of being a musical, Rocketman plays like Elton John recalling a dream of his own life. Elton acted as Executive Producer of Rocketman and I like to imagine the script as Elton attempting to remember his life through a haze of drugs and resentment and decades of removal. Those musings are then given to Bernie Taupin who picked out choice collaborations to accompany Elton’s fond and not so fond remembrances. 

The film is slightly linear, it does work somewhat chronologically through the life of Elton John from when he was 5 years old through the mid-1980’s and his first days after overcoming a debilitating and almost deadly abuse of drugs. But don’t think you will be able to figure out exactly when the incidents of Elton’s life are actually taking place, as I said earlier, this is a dream we’re talking about and the movie is filled with dreamlike images and logic that extend beyond the necessity for chronology. 

Taron Egerton portrays Elton John from his late teenage years through his middle age and that approach makes complete sense within the dream structure of Rocketman. Egerton neither looks much or sounds much like Elton John but as the representative of a dream that Elton has of himself, he makes perfect sense. Of course Elton remembers himself as better looking and less talented than he actually is, a mixture of narcissism and self loathing is a rather common trait in all humans. 

Egerton proves himself in Rocketman to be a remarkable talent worthy of the hype that came from his starring roles, opposite Elton cameos, in the Kingsman franchise. I am buying in hard on the Taron Egerton movie star idea. Egerton oozes charisma and complexity in equal measure in Rocketman. He can sing well enough, he sells the songs with remarkable confidence and that proves to be more than enough in the structure of Rocketman. 

Jamie Bell portrays Elton’s longtime best friend and writer Bernie Taupin and you can be forgiven for not realizing the two are just friends. For years, many people have held the mistaken notion that Elton and Bernie were a couple, how else to explain such a perfect marriage of singer and songwriter. Rocketman does a wonderful job of capturing the complicated emotions that led to their partnership and friendship and the ways Bernie completes the story of Elton. Bell also can belt out a song as needed and it’s beautiful. 

Bell is rounding into an amazing character actor despite how his hunkiness is making being just a side man, a supporting player, harder and harder to buy into. Bell appears to be one starring role away from becoming a permanent leading man with perhaps his heavy accent the only thing keeping him away from massive stardom. None of those observations are particularly necessary, the point is that the child star of Billy Elliott has proven remarkably resilient and increasing talent. 

Rocketman is rich with wonderfully detailed supporting performances. I mentioned Jamie Bell and now we can turn the spotlight on Richard Madden. The now former Game of Thrones star portrays Elton John’s villainous former lover and manager John Reid. Less kind reviewers have called Madden the weakest part of the film as he is nearly a mustache twirling baddie, broad enough to be a silent film outlaw. 

What those reviewers are missing, again, is that this is Elton John’s outsized memory of Reid. Rocketman is a burlesque of John Reid the real life former everything in Elton’s life. Of course Elton recalls the worst of Reid as well as the best. No one remembers the average moments of their time with a former lover or co-worker. You remember the moments of passion, the extremes, the big love, the big loss, the great sex and the ugliest rows. 

Richard Madden is playing the man that Elton John has despised for decades since their partnership ended in ugly, tabloid fashion. Of course Madden plays the character with a broad sense of nastiness and savage wit, that’s how Elton would choose to remember him in his less charitable moments. The film also depicts the obvious passion the men shared as well in a fashion that is likely more broad than reality. That’s how a dream or a memory tends to go. 

Bryce Dallas Howard and Steven Mackintosh round out the cast as Elton’s parents and once again, many critics are missing the point. Howard portrays Elton’s mother as a blowsy broad from 50’s Middlesex and an aging, angry, homophobic harridan and while this is certainly not capturing the complexity of the real Mrs. Dwight, it captures Elton’s reasonably resentful idea of this woman who failed to be as supportive and loving as one would hope for in a mother. 

Elton’s father is also not particularly complex. Mackintosh, like Howard, is playing a broad burlesque of an absent, cold, English father. Both parents are Freudian approximations of Elton’s most basic psychological shortcomings and well they should be. Again, that’s how many people view their parents when those parents are absent, or they associate those parents with specific or non-specific trauma. 

Director Dexter Fletcher and his incredible cast bring these wonderfully broad ideas to brilliant life all the while jukeboxing Elton’s amazing catalog and using Bernie Taupin’s remarkable lyrics as a storytelling catalyst rather than a device. Bernie Taupin was a poet and while you can try to literalize some of his words, Rocketman is not interested in anything particularly literal. The music adds to the dream-like state of the entire movie and in that way it deepens and enriches the film. 

I completely adore Rocketman and I would not be surprised to find it at or near the top of my list of my favorite movies of 2019 when this year comes to an end.