Christmas?! Perfect timing for a festive feel good rom-com like War Ho– wait…

War Horse? Totally! Let me pay $12 to see a movie that will destroy me emotionally, ruin my day and end my week at a stable, adopting an old stallion that didn’t perform well at the Kentucky Derby.

Even that’s a dreamer’s clause, because we all know that most of those poor horses have either been auctioned off and sent to slaughter or have been taken out to pasture for an immediate captive bolt pistol to the head.

But this movie isn’t called Race Horse. It’s called War Horse. This isn’t the heartwarming, inspiring tale of Seabiscuit or Flicka, this is Saving Private Pony, this is Black Horse Down, this is Hoofed Mammal Jacket, this, is not happening.


Now, if you’re wondering to yourself, “how much does this schmuck know about the films plot.” I’ll tell you right now, I know next to nothing and already I feel I know too much. If you were brave enough to get through the trailer in one sitting I commend you, but by the time I finish writing this, I’m hoping I somehow manage to survive the first scene.

Well, here goes nothing.

0:13: the “War Horse” gallops for its life as bombs fall from the sky like snow flakes… pause. I’m going to need a glass of water and a brown paper bag in the event that I hyperventilate and begin to lose consciousness. 

Let’s try this again.

1:23: As the panicked horse resists being taken from his boy caretaker only to be thrown back into the trenches, my heart rate elevates and my lower lip begins to quiver. Mmm, perfect.

Pause! Pause! Pause! I can’t do this on an empty stomach.

1:49: The war torn animal is mottled with stains of battle, earth and blood. He pivots his head to the audience with human like eyes consumed by fear and desperation. My whimpers have suddenly become sobs and I’m wondering if I’m dying or just having a full blown panic attack. Good grief, Spielberg, couldn’t you just have stuck with sequels to giant man-eating sharks devouring the residents of a small community? 


By the end of the trailer I’m not only hysterical, but I’m thoroughly pissed off I had to endure it to begin with. Do I want to know if this fictitious War Horse lives or dies? Of course I do, but I certainly don’t intend to find out, only to be ushered out of the theater for disrupting the entire audience with heaving emotion.

In fact, seeing this movie sounds about as appealing as wading through the radioactive waste of Lake Karachay naked and riddled with paper cuts. Show me vampire decapitation, show me mass slaughter via Jason Statham, show me mobster stabbings, show me zombie gunshots straight to the head, but do not, under any circumstance show me a suffering animal weathering the perils of mans calamity.

Am I alone here? Is this a movie for animal lovers? Who’s dying to see this movie and who’s dying not to?