An eagerly anticipated movie

Several months ago, I heard about a children's book called "War Horse" by Michael Morpurgo. It sounded like a great story and I became very eager to read it. I was finally able to get my hands on a copy and do so, and I really loved the book. It was apparently written quite a long time ago, I think around 1982 or so, but it has recently gained in popularity because of the smash Broadway production. Legendary director Steven Spielberg decided to take on the task of adapting this story to film, and I have waited this entire autumn to see it, which my mom, sister and I did yesterday. Naturally, as is typical, there were things added to the film that were not in the book, I suppose to better flesh out the story. The main character, Albert, whose father buys a horse to use to plow his farm, falls for the horse and trains him to plow the fields. Unfortunately, the alcoholic father paid too much for the horse and put the family in hock for it, so when World War I breaks out, the father is forced to sell the horse to the English cavalry to make back the money he spent on it. Albert is heartsick about his horse being sold off and wants to join the army to find his horse, but is underage. In the meantime, the horse goes off to war with the English cavalry and thus begins the horse's odyssey through the horrors of war and being passed from one owner to another as the war's casualties mount. Albert eventually joins the army to search for his beloved horse and I will not spoil the end for everyone. One of the things that kind of detracted from the movie is Spielberg's tendency to throw in cutesy scenes for the sake of contrived humor that is often out of place in a dramatic movie and in this case, he resorted to that lame tactic. I wish he hadn't done that but it seems to be a trademark of his. Aside from that, and the deviation from the novel by adding things that weren't in it, such as adding the trite evil landlord character, also not in the book, it was quite a good movie. The war scenes were quite intense and one story that was also not in the book featured two teenaged deserters from the German army who run away via the horse character and another horse he befriends. That story was quite tragic, but then, none of the stories in this movie is happy. Thus is war an unhappy thing for everyone involved. This movie was very good at showing the futility of war and the sad circumstances surrounding it. I would not take a small child to this movie because of some of the disturbing scenes in it, but I would definitely recommend going to see it. I give it a "thumbs-up" overall despite some of its weaknesses, and it was also very much worth the wait. See this movie on the large screen. Don't wait to see it on DVD/Blu-Ray. Even if you have a home theatre system, see it in a movie theatre with a crowd. Makes it all the more fun to see. Good movie, excellent book that I recommend reading.