FILM

USA 2011 146 mins Dir: Steven Spielberg Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, Peter Mullan, Benedict Cumberpatch, David Thewlis, Tom Hiddleston, Niels Arestrup, Eddie Marsan

Opening in a Devon bathed in such a warm sunshiney glow that those who grew up there will struggle to recognise it, Spielberg's adaptation of Michael Morpurgo's popular children's novel delivers pretty much what you might expect: a stirring adventure on an epic scale, with moments of cloying sentimentality and battle scenes which, while not exactly of 'Saving Private Ryan' intensity, push at the boundaries of the 12A certificate.

When drunken yokel farmer Ted Narracott (Mullan, doing grizzled and resentful again, albeit with the swearing turned down) buys a thoroughbred horse for a ridiculous sum at market on a whim, his missus Rose (Watson in another of her long-suffering wifey roles) despairs, but son Albert (bland newcomer Irvine) adopts and resolves to train the nag, which he names Joey. Nasty landlord Lyons (Thewlis), who's owed a shitload of rent by bibulous old Ted, wagers that the beast cannot plough the idyllic farm's stoniest field. Since nobody in the film seems to know the first thing about ploughing, this becomes a drawn-out dramatic episode. But at the outbreak of WWI, Ted flogs the steed to the British cavalry and the film finally kicks into gear as Joey embarks on an odyssey that sees him pass through the hands of British character actors (Hiddleston, Cumberpatch, etc), sundry German-accented English-speaking Boche soldiers, and a French farmer (Arestrup) and his granddaughter.

Spielberg's WWI seems rather sanitised until we get to the Somme and he serves up a bravura scene of Joey racing across a hellish No Man's Land, which will have equine enthusiasts watching through their fingers. Fans of the big horsey adventure genre should be reassured, however, that the happy ending is never in doubt. (Robin Askew)

Website www.warhorsemovie.com/

Opens: January 13

Copyright Robin Askew 2012