🔴‘Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 2’ Review: Kevin Costner’s Ambitious Western Project Frustrat📽

[Music] Horizon an American Saga chapter 2 review  Kevin Costner's ambitious Western project frustrat   there's an enormous amount to describe but very  little to actually say about Kevin Costner's   bedraggled Horizon an American Saga chapter 2  the second of a plan four installments in his   sprawling multi-stranded Western that plays after  the muted reception of chapter 1 in con out of   competition on the final day of Venice doubling  down on the first chapter's intermittent triumphs   but also on its Grievous structural issues it is  an exercise in contradictions incident packed yet   oddly sedate replete with characters new and  returning yet largely lacking in compelling   characterization and running to over 3 hours  simply too long a film to be so jarringly abrupt   it's hardly a surprise that it picks up where  the last left off given the last left off with   essentially a preview reel of part two viewers  bewildered by that montag's final image a   lingering closeup of a Mustachio Giovani risi who  did not otherwise appear will at least have that   mystery partially solved when chapter 2 opens in  Chicago with risi's Shady Mr Pickering persuading   a couple of local Rubes to invest in the land  grab scheme that is advertised on all those flyers   encouraging ing settlers to move to the bucolic  Frontier Idol dubbed Horizon this all is narrated   by Georgie Aiden mccan the young son of one of  the investors in a sing song Scott's inflected   accent reminiscent of Anna pacquins in the piano  and with a nice line in dry irony that makes it   a bit of a shame that we're never going to hear  from him again instead like apparently everyone   else we head West as last time the two best  developed strands are the wagon train storyline   during which the Grimm travails of Ella hunts Mrs  Proctor become the main focus and the continuing   Adventures of Sienna Miller Francis whose  tentative romance with Union Army officer Trent   Sam Worthington ends when he goes off to fight  both these narratives bring some insights to bear   on the plight of women in the pioneer West with  Mrs Proctor enduring sexual enslavement following   the murder of her husband to the shamefully  complicit Silence of the rest of the wagoners   meanwhile Francis disappointed by trance's  departure war is a good refuge for you men   who don't know your own cause yet she observes  tartly insists on moving back to her burnt out   Homestead with her daughter Elizabeth Georgia  mcfa to await the arrival of her dead husband's   widow or brother whom it is assumed she will marry  when these strands finally converge in the persons   of will Patton's Gruff good guy patriarch and  his Wayward willful tomboy daughter diamond   Isabelle Forman it's possible to Glimpse for  a second an overarching plan to the Horizon   Project that is mostly indiscernible otherwise  almost everything else is far less well-developed   Costner's own storyline involving the building  grudge match between his taciturn Gunslinger   Hayes Ellison and the vengeful bad guy Brothers on  his Trail is Thing gruul by comparison especially   while he's separated from his prostitute love  interest ABY Lee who spends most of this movie   hiding in the dirt under the wooden floorboards  of a bar/ brothel as though Kostner and John   be's screenplay can support only one non-white  ethnic angle at a time on this occasion the Native   American characters barely get a look in and  their screen time is donated instead to a group   of Chinese settlers led by the inscrutable Mr Hong  Jim Lao who move in next door to Francis renovate   a sawmill and put up a tea house any summary of  horizon will come across as far more coherent   on the page than it is on the screen in reality  it has its stirring Majestic set pieces such   as a wagon burning or a barn dance gunfight and  courtesy especially of J Michael murrow's Grand   cinematography lots of gorgeously epic shots of  the Wagon train wending across bride Aid planes   or the settlement that will we imagine become  Horizon gradually springing up from the dirt but   too often it's best imagined sequences take place  on either side of inexplicable gaps during which   the emotional Tempo has changed so completely it  leaves viewers forced to wonder if we somehow miss   something this Herky jerk Rhythm only increases  as we hurdle toward an ending which once again   without warning suddenly Segways into a dialogue  free Montage of clips from the forthcoming   installment it would have been so much more useful  to have kicked it all off with a quick recap of   what happened in chapter 1 chapter 2 sees Costner  and is most confoundingly presumptuous about our   level of detailed recall of the previous film even  the most assiduous viewer who has perhaps watched   the first film only recently will still struggle  on occasion to identify which particular Massacre   is being glancingly referred to or why characters  whom we vaguely remember being closely bonded are   now on the outs or vice versa the frustration is  mainly that Costner's prowess in staging rousing   old-fashioned Western hij Jinks is cond dimmed  on a scene by scene basis when you're not being   yanked into another storyline you can immerse  yourself in this finely detailed world where   right down to the fastenings on jackets  and britches class status and character   information is coded into the costuming and the  hopeful desperation of the frontier mentality   is embedded into the exceptional production design  though perhaps one should pity overworked composer   John debney whose classical horse Opera score  has to sort to a different type of crescendo   every 5 minutes like a modular Suite of  furniture in which each section is perfectly   designed but it's assembled so haphazardly it  barely resembles a sofa Horizon and American   Saga part two is as a film fatally hobbled by  its ungainly construction and by the itching   sense that the very same footage quickly readit  for clarity could have made for three perfectly   compelling hourong episodes of The Prestige  TV show that Horizon should always have been