Spielberg’s latest epic is adapts from the novel/stage a play of the same name, chronicling the twin trials of everyday family woes and once-in-a-generation tragedy as a young boy and his horse grow up together, before being separated by World War I. Expect plenty of tear-jerking moments.

A poverty-stricken family in Devon are in a spot of bother after boozy patriarch Ted (Peter Mullan) wastes a fortune bidding on a thoroughbred horse named Joey. Despite his wife’s (Emily Watson) haranguing, his son Albert (Jeremy Irvine) convinces him that he can raise the horse himself. He makes a go of it, but events are about to take control of their lives.

With the arrival of WWI, Joey is sold to the army to serve at the front – where he begins an exceptional journey in which he changes the lives of a British soldier Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston), an elderly French civilian/windmill resident (Niels Arestrup) and his daughter, and a pair of teenage German deserters. He even strikes up an unlikely interracial, homosexual affair with a fellow equine soldier (seriously).

Albert too has headed to the tranches, and is facing dangers just as terrifying. Still, he never stops thinking about the horse he loves (if only he knew of the affair).

This is a film that combines two great themes in the career of Steven Spielberg: it has the family tensions and emotional bonding of family classics like ‘E.T.’ and the powerful anti-war message of more adult fare such as ‘Saving Private Ryan’. The two are very difficult to combine, but he won’t find a better chance than in Michael Morpurgo’s story, which has already won plaudits in novel and stage form.

Spielberg certainly goes hell-for-leather in packing in the emotional crescendoes. Each short story of the encounters with the eponymous war horse powers through its quick, succinct arc, frequently culminating in moments that combine the stunning visual skills of the veteran director with the overwhelming orchestral strains of his equally experienced composer, John Williams.

As expected, there is no shortage of tearful scenes, from triumphant moments in which horse and man display their courage under pressure, to elegantly delivered moments of tragedy.

The trouble is that, taken in sequence, with their relentless attempts to tug at the heartstrings, these scenes can become both tiresome and a little trite. There’s an ever-so-slight grating between the source material, which, lest we forget, is written for children, and Spielberg’s visual storytelling, which is aching in ever scene to be given a rougher edge, a starker impact.

We also had a nagging sensation that the film is more about understanding how awesome this horse is than seeing all of these exceptional characters through the purer, simpler eyes of a beast that is so inextricably linked to them.

Nonetheless, if you’re willing to give yourself over to the lyrical simplicity of the film, and allow yourself to be tugged from triumphant to tearful at the drop of a hat, there’s plenty to be said for this film. Not just from the filmmakers’ side either, the performances across the board all help Spielberg load this story so fully with emotion.

In fact, special mentions must go to the performances of Tom Hiddleston, Peter Mullan, Niels Arestrup and Toby Kebbell for bringing extra credibility to a surprisingly tricky adaptation.

Whether you believe it’s a cynical tearjerker or the purest expression of Steven Spielberg’s great cinematic themes, with all the brilliance and frustration that entails, you have to credit ‘War Horse’ for being so openly emotional, and driven by the desire to cover the full gamut of hopes and horrors that surrounded the First World War.