Well, apparently I’m a chump. Finally decided to check out Horizon Chapter 1 in theaters since it might be hitting streaming soon and I bet it’ll be a $20 rental. So I used my AMC Premier thingy to plant myself for a 3 hour watch of a movie (and genre) I’m barely interested in. But, on the off chance I liked it, I’d be prepared for Chapter 2.
And then I get home and find out they’ve pulled Chapter 2 from the theatrical release schedule. Which makes sense. Given its box office so far, if there’s any chance a sequel can make money in theaters, the first part needs more time to cook on streaming.
But anyway, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 – is a (charitably stated) sprawling Western about settlers, wagon trains, and the Native American who hate them. Plus some bandits. Plus a wild Kevin Costner. Oh, and the army… because they have to protect the settlers and (presumably) worry about the upcoming Civil War.
This movie is a mess. Or, rather, it’s a mess for its first hour and change. I had no idea who any of the characters were and cared even less about them since they were both bull-rushing right into it and taking their time on seemingly insignificant things. So I didn’t care… who these yokels were, what was going on with their settlement, and why Indians were attacking, and if this was a modern Western or a throwback to where the Natives were the de facto villains.
The film distractedly bounces from one storyline to the next without even a howdy-do. Now we’re in a wagon train, now Costner shows up in his own arc. The editing between one storyline and the next is poor and it took me entirely too long to realize the play they were pulling. A sprawling epic across multiple locations and sets of character who have no connection with each other and will probably meet in Part 2.
Its on-boarding as a film is borderline malpractice. I don’t want to sound like a low-forehead, knuckle-dragger but movies have a language when it comes to sprawling plots that this film didn’t bother with. Maybe that’s my limited investment into the story and my skepticism over this whole project (and not being much of a fan of Westerns) talking.
On the positive side, once the film bounces back to a set of characters for the second or third time, I started to feel better about the whole thing. I went from “I’m absolutely NOT going to bother with Chapter 2” to… “maybe I will?” Maybe I want to see what happens when the stories collide? Maybe all of this is going somewhere? Might have been nice to drop some hints instead of loading the last few minutes with “Next time on Horizon” spoiler clips. So my rating reflects half a disaster and half a disaster reassembling itself into something passable.
This movie is a borderline mess… and I’d argue a total mess in its first hour. But grouchy and unimpressed me did eventually find the potential, even if it’s a nebulous Chapter 1 that barely gets done introducing its cast before cutting to credits. Will I watch part 2? At this point, yeah, maybe. Probably.
Your move, Costner!
Score: 73