War Horse

The sheer physical beauty of the horse and the magnificent landscape of rural Devon, England, makes the first section of "War Horse" a feast for the eyes, as stalwart young lad Albert (Jeremy Irvine, in his film debut) struggles to channel the high-strung energy of newly bought horse Joey into plowing a rocky field. A destructive rainstorm forces Albert's father (Peter Mullan, "Boy A") to sell Joey to an army captain (Tom Hiddleston, "Thor") who takes the horse into the battlefields of World War I. From there, turns of fortune lead Joey into the hands of a German private, a French girl and her grandfather, and then into the cratered no man's land between the warring armies. "War Horse" is jarringly uneven. Some moments are over-the-top while others are elegantly understated; the tone ranges from the broad comedy of a mid-1970s Disney live-action flick to the raw majesty of a John Ford western. The episodic storytelling doesn't help--the characters don't have time to fully establish themselves in the audience's hearts, despite some excellent performances. The greatest weakness is that director Steven Spielberg doesn't connect us to Joey himself; though it's impossible not to have moments of empathy with the trials of this beautiful animal, at other times the horse is no more than a narrative device, carrying us from one micro-story to another. Still, some episodes are unquestionably compelling (a sequence in which a British and a German soldier collaborate to rescue Joey is particularly good) and, though stylistically all over the place, "War Horse" is never less than visually stunning. --"Bret Fetzer"