2011 was a pretty disappointing year for cinema. Pixar released its first critical misfire with Cars 2 (which failed to make back its budget domestically), Winnie the Pooh was good, but unfortunately only made back its exact budget and nothing more, and a bunch of talentless hacks made the highest grossing movies of the year (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Zookeeper, The Smurfs). Luckily, all that changed later this year. Martin Scorsese made his best movie yet with Hugo, The Muppets returned in a self-titled reboot that actually works, and Steven Spielberg helped a young Belgian reporter named Tintin come to life in his first performance capture movie. War Horse is another Spielberg movie I saw this year, and I think it's a lot better than his Tintin movie.
War Horse is based on the best-selling children's novel by British author Michael Morpurgo (which was also adapted into a play as well) and is about a horse named Joey who is adopted by a boy named Albert (Jeremy Irvine). When it is announced that England is at war, Joey is taken from Albert and is forced to go into war. I should warn you that you may find some scenes that are not only a bit unsettling, but can be very gut-wrenching as well. Plus, despite being based on a children's novel, the war scenes are intense enough to give the film the PG-13 rating it was given.
The film's absolutely breathtaking scenery and an ultimately Oscar-worthy story will have you leaving the theater with satisfaction. No doubt that The Adventures of Tintin was a fantastic movie because of being faithful to its source material unlike The Smurfs, but the gorgeous masterpiece that is War Horse makes Tintin look like a hack job. It was a fantastic way to end 2011 with a bang, and hopefully 2012 will be an even better year for the filmmaking business.
Final Grade: A
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