Kevin Costner’s Western Horizon ruins the ending with an absolute wrong decision

I was really looking forward to Horizon. On the first Thursday I saddled up my bike and rode to the cinema that evening to immerse myself in Kevin Costner’s western epic for three hours. Unfortunately, the experience was rather mixed for me, but the disappointment turned into real anger when I saw the “end” of the film.

Horizon messes up the ending because Kevin Costner cares more about his sequels

As a child of divorce from the Yellowstone crisis, I mourn Kevin Costner’s departure from the series, but I don’t want to take sides in the conflict and so I looked forward to Horizon with great anticipation. I admire Kevin Costner’s willingness to go into debt for his dream everyday western, which is far removed from revenge clichés.

In fact, the first 30 minutes of Horizon turned out to be an exciting start. But in the end, the three-hour ride of this “American saga” didn’t add up to a complete package for me: too many characters, too little continuity in the story, too much fatigue shaped my cinema experience. I recently saw a much more convincing and character-focused reinterpretation of the Western genre in Viggo Mortensen’s The Dead Don’t Hurt.

In the end, apart from Kevin Costner, Abbey Lee, Sienna Miller and Sam Worthington from the large Horizon ensemble, only a few roles remain in my memory after their brief appearances. Introducing new characters even after a two-and-a-half hour runtime may work in a series with multiple episodes. Nevertheless, the film lost me at some point. Even the beautiful western landscapes couldn’t change that. Costner’s promise that moviegoers would be able to identify better with the Horizon staff thanks to women bathing and other details taken from real life did not come true for me.

The biggest annoyance, however, was at the very end, where the Film packs a trailer right at the end. Without any discernible distinction from the previous scenes, I only noticed belatedly that the western had apparently come to an end and in the same breath had pushed me into the preview of Horizon 2, 3 and 4.

The Horizon flash-forward at the end is a real problem

Trailers or preview snippets at the end are nothing new in the film business. Existing brands have been using such visual additions as a hint for sequels, prequels and spin-offs since the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But these glimpses of what’s to come are usually separated from the main film by a black fade, the first credits or a whole credits sequence. Horizon, on the other hand, throws the post-credit idea overboard and denies the chance to take a breather.

Processing what has just been seen is just as impossible as a clear separation between parts 1 and 2. Doesn’t Kevin Costner see that with this “trick” he is Film steals the conclusion? Sure, he sees his Horizon saga as a great 12-hour epic. But looking back, I couldn’t say what the official last scene was, even with the best will in the world, which detracts enormously from my viewing experience. Horizon suddenly has no end.

Instead, I’m left hanging, annoyed that I don’t know who Costner’s Hayes Ellison is shooting at and what Giovanni Ribisi is doing on screen after he was nowhere to be seen on the horizon of Horizon for the last three hours.

I won’t let Kevin Costner force me to watch any more Horizon films

But it is more than that. Horizon is now considered a flop. According to Box Office Mojo, the film has only earned 35 million US dollars worldwide from the 100 million US dollars budget of the first two parts. The US theatrical release of part 2 has been cancelled for the time being. This failure is a development that many predicted in advance. But regardless of whether the trailer ending, which was integrated into the film from the beginning, has these or other reasons: Kevin Costner is sticking firmly to his 4-film plans. So desperately so that he told me the Aggressively pushes sequels at the end.

It’s almost as if I have no choice but to look forward to the sequel. But this is where my defiance comes in: I wouldn’t refuse to watch Horizon 2 in principle. But please let me decide for myself whether I want to see more after part 1, Kevin. An ending that isn’t one and even more unknown characters will not convince me of that.

When I leave the cinema, I am left with a bitter aftertaste of having sacrificed three hours for a film that denies me the satisfying feeling of (at least partial) closure. If this is supposed to be the new everyday feeling promised by Kevin Costner, with which his western imitates real life (which has no closure along the way), then I can do without it. The bike beneath me groans rather laboriously on the way home.

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