If this does become a thing, here are the three categories I will cover:
Acting
Plot
Aesthetics
-------------------------------------------------------
Acting
A movie cannot be nominated for a relatively prestigious award without having stellar acting, and this Golden Globe nominated film, while not Oscar worthy, was not an exception--the acting was bien. I thought the wife (where the horse first resided) and the little girl was très bien. The problem I have with the acting is that it was not good enough to keep the movie interesting for two and a half hours, and many movies have great acting. 7/10
Plot
In rural England, there is a horse. This horse goes through an extraordinary journey during World War 1 in which he influences the lives of soldier both British and German, farmers, and peasants. The only scenes in which I didn't want to leave the theater were the scenes with the granddaughter. I thought everything else dragged on in an unnecessary manor and the stories were being told in a way that leaded the viewer to caring the least bit for the horse and his human counterpart. I understand how the characters and their stories were developed and carried out, and there was no better way to do it (with this plot) but it still sucked. Maybe if the plot was altered so it focused more on one character, it wouldn't be so boring and weird. Saying that the plot is bad is not right, because looking back on this movie, it was well thought out, made perfect sense, and was complex. But it was an extremely boring film, and keeping the viewer interested in the plot is almost 100 percent of how/if a movie is successful. Script wise, it was fine, not amazing but not Monte Carlo-esque at all. The way the plot was carried out was poor, and if the plot itself wasn't clever then I'd have given this category 2/10 stars. 7/10
Aesthetics
Blood, English horses, and grassy hills summarize the setting of this movie. The cinematography was elementary for a film with such an accomplished crew, with weird shots of faces and awkward distances from the subject, such as when the horse was walking up hills as the sun set. When comparing this film to another such as The Kings Speech it makes you wonder if a 18 year old freshman at NYU filmed this movie. They're not comperable, and this film was not aesthetically pleasing, unless you have a thing for horses. (And the young mans eyes were so fake I couldn't stand it, oh my gosh. I am now happy that Jennifer Lawrence will not be wearing colored contacts in The Hunger Games because it's just...blech). In the wire scene towards the end of the movie, the darkness made everything look purely fake, and the way the horse was trapped wasn't clever or cool in my opinion, but that is just my weird opinion. My favorite scene based on aesthetics was the scene in which the young man with the creepy eyes was plowing the lawn--the textures in that scene were great, and made me cringe with excitement, and the rain was beautifully carried out. 8/10
..................I'm mean, right?
