Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1

Look I'll be the first to admit I groaned and rolled my eyes at everyone in the theaters at the end of The Fellowship of the Rings when a few morons said out loud "wait that's it?!?" At the end of the 1st of 3 movies.... But, in the case of this movie (which I understand is just Chapter 1 with Chapter 2 in the eves) wait that's it?

I just watched a 3 hour movie, with 15 main characters, and 30 subplots. Each of which got 25 minutes? It just felt incredibly disjointed. The weird spoiler-y preview at the end was spoiler-y as hell. I feel like this would have been a great mini-series, but in this convoluted fashion it fell flat for me.

It was beautifully shot. And was fun to watch visually, but I have no idea about any of the characters, they history, reason for being. It just drops you in the middle of each journey and it genuinely feels like I missed and entire movie before this. Maybe Chapter 2 will solidify some stuff, but that is a stupid way to do things.

Visually its amazing, as you would expect from A western movie.

It has some great themes and plot lines but even though its part one and 3 hours long it feels rushed and crammed in. Pacing was all over the place, characters teleport between places and times and feels like chunks were left out.

There are parts of the story when in one scene people are doing something, then the next scene seems like a year later with no explanations.

As a story telling vehicle its all over the place.

The cast is great,

The end montage to preview the next movie was just ridiculous.

Still looking forward to seeing where it goes but it really feels like a TV series joined together, with the odd part of an episode left out.

Nice cinematography with Utah standing in for Arizona. But seems loosely based on no plot. Many many characters are introduced right off the bat. And the story line jumps to and fro. I had trouble figuring out who was who and related to what. I realize it's a mini-series of sorts. But after one hour in the viewer should be quiet clear as to direction. This thing is a meandering disjointed mess of a screenplay. I'm very disappointed with Costner considering he has been involved with some of the most highly rated westerns known to modern audiences. (Silverado, Dances With Wolves, Open Range etc). Can't recommend.

It's not bad. It's just disjointed. It fails on a lot of levels. I think many people will enjoy it. I personally felt disappointment as I was hoping for a cinematic epic western. It felt like it belonged on tv as a miniseries in the late 90's. As much as people say there were cinematic shots, I didn't see anything that gave me that vibe. Medium shot after medium shot. This will be just as enjoyable on your home tv and you won't miss the big screen as much as say Dune or Oppenheimer. The characters. So. Many. Characters. We get barely any character development. Lots of great actors yes, but they are thrown at you left and right. It is also clear that there is probably 3 hours of deleted scenes. So many things happen with zero context. Characters fall in love out of nowhere. They wind up together out of nowhere. They cry for other characters out of nowhere. Characters show up out of nowhere. Who's a protagonist? Who's an antagonist? Some of the characters are over the top and fun, reminding me of classic western characters, but they feel silly here. The music is...fine....nothing really moving though, it's just there. It also feels too clean. Like either everyone is in very new costumes and clean and air conditioned or they are really really dirty, but nowhere in between. Remember when everyone was shiny from sweat and real flies flew around on screen? Early on I just kept thinking...something is off. Then there's the end. It's Part 1, but instead of a cliffhanger and a "to be continued" we cut straight into the longest montage of cut scenes from the next movie(s) showing way too much...for a movie we barely have to wait for. It comes out in 2 months. All that said, I'm invested in the story and I want to see how it unfolds. There is a good story and good characters here, but this would have been much better as a series on streaming where they could take time with everything. 6/10. (Like Dune, maybe Part 2 will change my rating)

The good: -Great cinematography and use of scenery.

-Good suspense and action in the first half- hour.

-Good film score to compliment the scenes.

-Not sugar coating or politicizing the conflict with the Native Americans.

The bad: -Juggling different storylines doesn't see to be Kevin Costner's strong point. The script was all over the place. I wasn't sure what the montage at the end of the movie was trying to accomplish. It seemed to appear all of a sudden and, just like the script, jumped all over the place. Was I being shown a flash forward? A preview of the upcoming movies? It just seemed really pasted together.

-Kevin Costner seems to have jumped ship from Yellowstone to work on the epic set of films and in doing so, seems to be trying to "one up" Taylor Sheridan's series 1883 and 1923. Not sure what Kevin Costner needs to prove, but it seems like with this set of films, he's trying to prove himself to be the better story teller. In my opinion he's no better or worse than T. S. but leaving a T. V. series where you're a major character with major loose ends to tie up just to create a similar project smells a tad bit petty. This film almost seems like K. C. has bit off more than he can chew. This is not the way to engage theatre goers to invest in a four set of three hour films.