There is no film genre quite as terrifying as the ‘horse drama’. Inevitably full of drippy, precocious children embarking, animal in tow, on all sorts of wacky and meaningful adventures, and emotionally manipulative enough to make X Factor life stories look subtle and well conceived, it’s the syrupy stuff of nightmares. Consequently ‘War Horse’ with its tagline, ‘bound by friendship’, did not seem an especially enticing prospect. However, despite the inevitable cloying moments, Spielberg has directed a great, expansive, old fashioned epic, fast paced and beautifully shot which balances the friendship and joy shtick with some excellent and vivid war scenes.

A tedious chapter opens the film showing young Devon boy Albert (Jeremy Irvine) train and care for his father’s new horse, Joey, amidst eternal rural landscape shots and questionable accents. After some taxing field ploughing, an almost spiritual connection between the two is cemented. Their relationship carries much of the film’s emotional weight, but it’s never really convincing, Irvine’s performance is so overly earnest it seems insincere. Luckily though at the outbreak of WW1 Joey is taken from the grasp of Albert, and we follow him from Devon to the front, encountering a number of more engaging characters along the way. Joey, bringing aid and support to all becomes a pillar of magnanimity amidst the horrors of war.

Though the 12A certificate prevents the bloody fierceness of Saving Private Ryan, the battle scenes still manage to be effective and harrowing. A surprise cavalry attack is shot beautifully, both brutal and graceful. The Somme is shown dark and dank, rat infested and full of young, shaky looking soldiers; the filming might be lavish but it doesn’t glamorize. This is a far cry from the golden hills of Devon. There is one trench tracking shot following Joey as he leaps and writhes through wiring and potholes that is especially captivating, full of pain and misery. Every squelch in the mud, each labored breath of the troops and wavering hoof on gravel, is caught, dropping us straight into the action.

War Horse is an excellent exercise in powerful, sweeping storytelling, harking back to Capra and Ford. Whilst it can be unashamedly sentimental, full of slightly surreal plot twists, with an overbearing score, it remains an entertaining and moving portrayal of friendship and kindness in the face of adversity and horror.