War Horse (2011)

Is it possible for a film to be so technically perfect that it becomes a distraction and actually hurts the story being told?  This boy and his horse WWI story certainly seems to answer that question with a resounding, yes.  There are times when John Williams' glorious musical score seems to float out beyond the screen with an identity all its own: Listen to me, don't I sound familiar to you, it's me another John Williams Score.  Janusz Kamiński's lighting and visual touch is so striking and the art direction so on-point the world feels artificial at times.  Even the acting from Emily Watson to Benedict Cumberbatch stick out as being too larger than life, if not staged.   Don't misunderstand me, I enjoyed this movie.  It's a good movie, remnant of older films made in the '40s or '50s.  I appreciate that Spielberg doesn't rush the story and develops the characters involved.  What I especially enjoyed about this film is Joey the horse.  Not since Robert Bresson's 1966 film Au hasard Balthazar has a animal as the main character delivered such a memorable performance.  If they gave out Oscars to non-humans Joey (or the many horses used to portray him) would get it easily.  In writing this I've thought a lot about why this fails at  delivering the emotional punch it aims for and I think one is because the story easily draws Spielberg into his major crutch as a storyteller and that's overstating the sentiment.  The other reasons is that a great director can rarely make a mediocre script better.   Grade: B+