Albert and Joey

The War Horse teaser has all the well-known earmarks of a Steven Spielberg film, you bet. It totally reeks of his paintbox. I’m still holding out hope that the film, due in late December, will primarily be a horse-POV drama and secondarily about the people who love and use and exploit him. (Teaser initially posted by the Film Stage.)

The only dialogue in the teaser is spoken by A Prophet‘s Niels Arestrup.

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56 thoughts on “Albert and Joey”

  2. God, it’s awful! It couldn’t be worse if the horse learned to talk at the end. I know advertising people are supposed to sucker people into the cinema, but surely Spielberg must have some sway over the way the trailer’s cut.

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  3. That’s one gosh darn perty lookin’ war. I reckon all those soldiers felt real privileged-like to have laid down their lives on the altar of such tender beauty. O, the pulchritude.

    Thasos… that’s just it. Spielberg has sway over the way the trailer’s cut. This is precisely what he wants.

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  5. (Everything the same EXCEPT:)

    A Roman Polanski Film

    “Brilliant! This is now, without a doubt, the frontrunner for Best Picture. Such magnificence! Such artistry!”

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  7. “How come Spielberg never makes a movie about vag?”

    Because that’s not in his wheelwell. The same way that movies NOT about vag are not in yours.

    It’s ok. Just watch Transformers 3 and everything will be all right. That’s a good boy.

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  8. Yeah, actionlover. Because that’s how Polanksi’s films look or are marketed as.

    This trailer was totally generic, and looked nearly like a parody of several of his films sandwiched together.

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  15. @action lover FTW

    And LexG brings the thread to a screeching, car wreck of a stop.

    This is one that I might be with Wells on, but only judging from this trailer. It just doesn’t blow my skirt up.

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  16. I don’t want to go all D.Z., but this is awfully reminiscent of Empire of the Sun, except with a horse. Maybe as a tribute, Joey can make a cameo at Wayne Manor in Dark Knight Rises.

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  17. >How come Spielberg never makes a movie about vag?

    He’s worth a couple billion, so please BOW and relinquish your right to have any opinion whatever about anything he has ever done, or will do in perpetuity.

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  18. “So it’s like Black Beauty, but in World War I?”

    I thought he’d have gone for Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

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  20. I think the film itself will be a bit darker and more upsetting. This trailer feels like it’s straight out of 1992, but the glimpses of WWI battle action suggest it could be a bit more graphic than this hints at.

    That said, remember that this is based on what is essentially a kid’s/young adult’s book, so it’s not going to be Saving Private Ryan on horseback.

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  22. I know this website’s all about reviewing movies based on their teasers but whatever.

    Given the pedigree, I’m perfectly happy to wait to see the actual MOVIE, if that’s okay.

    Still, I’ll admit that there was one shot of the horse looking up where dude was looking into my soul, like that first shot we saw WETA did of Cesar the ape looking around.

    And the shot of the girl sleeping with the two horses reminded me of the room reminded me of the bit in Airplane!. Still, I’m optimistic.

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  26. I guess I’ll have to say it: this looks like shit. I thought (hoped? prayed?) that Spielberg might have seen this as a legitimate passion project a la Munich or AI. Munich had structural problems but it had more bite in it than anything Spielberg has done since the non-bookend sections of SPR.

    Instead, this preview makes it look like Spielberg at his most pleading; the guy hasn’t had a bona fide out of the park non-franchise hit since, SPR, I guess? The kids all have that “please love me!” look. The music is wholly inappropriate for a war movie. Please, go back and watch the original trailer for Empire of the Sun:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKbg7RmW8rY

    It’s not Spielberg’s best, but it’s damn near close. It has all the Spielberg trademarks – “trick shots” and so on – and it too was a movie aimed at young adults. But it also had the grit and pain of reality. The cinematography didn’t put fifteen layers of filter and saturations between the audience and the events on screen. There’s always darkness lurking around the corner. Here, we are constantly being reassured that all this war business is just an irritating diversion before the uplifting finale. Based on this preview, the guy’s lost it.

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  27. The music is what tips this trailer into Spielberg self-parody, for me. It sounds like the soundtrack to those “heart-warming” versions of coffee and tissue and insurance commercials they play around Christmas.

    “Will my son make it home from Afghanistan in time for Christmas? Let me make a cup of Folgers coffee, look out the window longingly, and see. Oh shit, there he is!!!”

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  28. “Based on this preview, the guy’s lost it.”

    Calm down. It’s a “sizzle reel” at best, highlighting the emotional content which is what has the audiences lapping it up on Broadway. Absurd to write it off so soon.

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  29. Actually, the music sounds dangerously close to the HENRYV theme (when he’s rallying the troops… and used in a lot of trailers since). But that’s okay, I like it.

    I dunno. This looks pretty good.

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  30. I liked it, and look forward to it.

    Bunch of bitter-ass fucks, the lot of you.

    Besides, when was the last time we had a good WWI film? A Very Long Engagement? That ten minutes of Legends of the Fall?

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  31. Pretty images, as always. Speaking of ALWAYS, this film looks more like that than anything Spielberg has done since.

    Looks like we’re in for a lot of galloping horse shots.

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  35. HE is always a good place to come for movie reviews based on teasers, ain’t it!

    What can you really tell aside from that it looks appropriately grand and Spielbergian.

    Okay, I admit it: There was a shot of the horse there where I thought it was looking right at me, like in that WETA shot of Cesar the ape getting wise. And the shot of the girl sleeping with the two horses in the room reminded me of Airplane!

    But aside from those quibbles, I’m willing to give Spielberg benefit of the doubt.

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  36. What if I told you it was an all-CG horse, based on a mocap performance by Daniel Day Lewis as a warm-up to play Lincoln? Would it make it better?

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  37. How come Spielberg never makes a movie about vag?

    He did with The Color Purple but none of the women had an ass like a ten year old boy like you like.

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  38. ActionLover is right.

    Some Spielberg haters on here.

    That was awesome, and some of those shots are incredible.

    This makes me want to watch The Lighthorsemen again,

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  40. “Bunch of bitter-ass fucks, the lot of you.”

    Seriously. This was an amazing trailer, and I definitely wanted to see more of Neils after A Prophet

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  41. I’m usually in the tank for Spielberg. Never missed a movie in the theatre since I was old enough to pay for them…oh wait, Amistad…nevermind.

    Anyhow, I fully don’t get this film. It seems like a regression to me. Then again, I kind of thought the idea for The Terminal was okay – and that didn’t pan out.

    What’s the allure for him here? Is the novel something I should read first? Maybe then I’ll “get” it?

    Ya there are some beautiful looking shots here – there always are in Spielberg films. I totally understand why nobody actually is really excited about this film though – it just seems weird. Oh I’ll see it but dammit, I don’t know…this just feels off…

    I can give him the benefit of the doubt for sure, but it looks like The King’s Speech – something I’ll like, but man, my mom is gonna love the ever-loving shit out of it.

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  42. Eh, TinTin looks way more interesting. But I’ll give it a chance, it just doesn’t seem like my cup of tea. It’s like the King’s Speech: I see the appeal, I understand why people might be excited, and I’d never take that away from them, it’s just not something I’d ever get a thrill out of.

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  43. Ugh, this thread… I guess I should have figured on this. We go from reviewing what will probably be a film in excess of 120 minutes based on an obviously intentionally “feel-good” trailer based around establishing the property in relation to its Broadway antecedent and actual source material, the book that runs approximately 120 seconds to then critiquing Spielberg’s entire recent career trajectory and declaring, based on some clips and familiar music, that he’s lost it, to now saying that it looks like a stilted British Oscar Bait Drama by television journeyman Tom Hooper, irrespective of Spielberg being behind it.

    Can’t wait to see the actual film, in any case. Spielberg’s more than earned the right to choose what he wants to make. (Though I have to admit, I’m not losing any sleep over Harvey having been shelved.)

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  45. That is a fair point. I suppose the most that could be reasonably said is that it appears to be given something of a “feel good” slant, and based on what I’ve read about the project–despite it clearly not being Saving Private Joey–the film will probably be more hard-hitting. (IOf course, these trailer-based discussions always feel inherently strange, since most films are more hard-hitting than trailers by their very nature.)

    Tintin, War Horse, Lincoln, Robopocalypse, Interstellar, perhaps that George Gershwin film… Looks like a potentially delicious line-up for Spielberg to tackle in the next few years to me.

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  46. The trailer comes off as manipulative, Oscar bait. The music is schmaltzy and tells you, “You will cry.” I’m sure it’ll all look pretty and well filmed though.

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  47. Rashad: “I don’t even see how people think this looks “feel good.” There’s more war shots than anything”

    Wow. Alright, let’s try this slowly:

    1. “War Horse” is a film based in, and heavily concerning, a war.

    2. In most such “war films” (as defined above), there will be an overwhelming amount of shots and scenes taking place…in a war. This includes a range from peaceful shots comprised of military elements to active battles.

    3. This trailer is comprised of shots from the film.

    4. Trailers are in the business of making viewers “feel good” about their films.

    5. Merely presenting scenes from a war film does not render the assemblage, whether in film form or in trailer form, to be “feel good” (or “feel bad”).

    6. This trailer utilizes upbeat and hopeful (literally, in one case,) interstitial text-cards, brightly-lit, smiling faces set out from dark backgrounds, and a soundtrack of swelling horns with a home-felt-type, “welcoming” wood-whistle coda to make the viewer “feel good” by its conclusion.

    Your teachers must be exhausted, yet frustrated.

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