War Horse

War Horse - An anti-military statement from Stephen Spielberg. A shocking interpretation of the children's story.

I read the book and saw the play in New York City, so today I went to see the War Horse movie. I was stunned and disappointed with the gratuitous violence, blood and gore that was interpreted from what was a children's book. I did not like the movie's negative portrayal of the military. In the book, both the German and the British soldiers were portrayed respectfully and sympathetically. Some of the anti-military scenes in the movie were totally invented by Spielberg; not in the original children's book at all. In the story of War Horse, the Germans never executed the young boys who were not even portrayed characters in the book, and the British never told their men to shoot fellow soldiers. But Joey the horse was portrayed wonderfully in the movie, and there was not a dry eye in the theatre. I only wish they had given Emilee's story more coverage instead of ignoring it to stress the violence of the war.

The movie took a children's story and made it into an anti-military screed that contains too much violence for children.