Horizon: An American Saga--Chapter One (#571)

One of the conclusions I came to after viewing Kevin Costner's initial effort of the  promised four part epic is, it ain't no "Dances With Wolves."  The scenery is beautiful, the music is loud but appropriate, the settings look remarkably legitimate but…  it is just another western  I wasn't aware of a real plot.  It began by showing a series of events, people  and locations which seemed totally unconnected.  Then there was a concerted effort to expand on several of the events but certainly not all of them.  Most of the effort was the one in which Costner, writer, director and actor, was involved.  I believe th movie is an honest effort to depict the west as it really was—violent, bawdy, unlawful—but I suspect history was lost somewhere along the line.  In HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA - CHAPTER ONE, we see endless scenes of indigenous people killing and mutilating white settlers, military snd civilian personnel killing and mutilating  indigenous people, and settlers killing settlers and other civilians and other insidious behavior.  And the kaleidoscopic conclusion didn't really suggest there was more to come nor did any of the expanded stories get any kind of resolution.  Viewers weren't left hanging in the air; we were kind of dismissed after sitting for an always visually attractive and interesting and rarely boring 3 hours and 1 minute. I suspect Kevin Costner bit off more than he could chew. Critics weren't too kind and less than half (43%) gave it a thumbs up along with 72% of audiences.