Review: Cowboys & Aliens 225
So let me be clear up front: I didn't hate it. The only movie this summer that I walked out of the theater thinking FAIL in capital letters was Green Lantern. So far everything else has had some sort of redeeming value. And this does too: solid production values, occasionally funny dialog, cool looking aliens, and a really awesome bad guy base/rocket ship is good fun.
The plot: Daniel Craig is a cowboy who wakes up with amnesia and a strange metal wrist band. He runs afoul of a punk kid with a rich daddy (Ford) in a town where blinking lights in the sky show up and lasso people away at night. So Craig and Ford and a ragtag assortment of town folk go looking for their kin, learning about the aliens, and growing beyond their cheesy racism with the local indians, and shooting pistols at alien space ships.
The sci-fi western is tough sod to trod. The winners (Firefly, Cowboy Bebop) have typically placed Cowboys into Outter Space, and not Aliens into the Old West. For me, this is because the whole old west/cowboy thing is kinda campy. Hollywood dried up that well over the years, leaving behind a legacy of great and terrible movies. But the Western has a visual vocabulary we all know. The Bar Hall Brawl. The standoff in main street between two gun-slingers. The Boozing and the Prostitutes. And of course the dialog conventions... that 1800s slang which is very fun to play with for a moment, and pretty annoying after awhile. Unless you are Malcolm Reynolds.
I think they did an ok job with their world. They never really break out of The Old West. With the exception of the super weapon that Craig has attached to his wrist, the good guys weapons are pistols, rifles, dynamite sticks which makes it all the more awesome fighting highly maneuverable alien fighter jets, as well as the more melee battles on the ground.
The aliens and their technology are a mixed bag. Their design is sort of like a turtle with a quatto to inside. We see 2 ships: one which is kinda a fighter that looks like a firefly, and one giant rocket base that is mostly underground and used to mine gold (which is explained, but really is done just for cool golden visuals scattered all around the film, and to justify alien presence and overall badness).
Should you see it? I enjoyed Captain America, Harry Potter, and Thor more. But this was better than Transformers 3 and Green Lantern. It's visually stylized. Sometimes charming. My wife thought Daniel Craig was just ok, where I found him to be pretty cool. I thought Harrison Ford to once again proves that he is just to old for this sort of work: Same problem with Indiana Jones the action just isn't believable any more- he looks and moves like an old man, and they edit it this stuff to make him look like he is doing more than he is instead of embracing the fact that he's an old guy shuffling around. He just doesn't pull it off. But he looks good in a hat.
But when I look at the producer credits, I can't help but feel like this just should have been better. There are 8 writers, including several of the Bad Robot regulars. The producers include the Ron Howard/Brian Grazer team, Steven Spielburg and those Lost guys again. I can't help but feel like when the dust settled, this was a film by committee. From the design to the script to the casting and somewhere through 8 writers and all these producers a bit of sparkle got sanded off.
But hey, next summer Pirates & Aliens? Ninjas & Aliens? I spent all night trying to decide what genre should encounter aliens next, and i have the answer: Alien & Aliens. Now THAT would be a movie.
There are 8 writers (Score:4, Insightful)
The true sign of any picture I would avoid.
Crappy, crappy film (Score:5, Insightful)
It's nothing like the comic and as AC posted there are eight writers which is a warning sign.
I was hoping there would be a high noon shootout, a crazy old prospector sidekick, the whore with a heart of gold and a six shooter between her boobs, saving an alien from being hung by the sheriff who's more crooked than the branch on the executioner's tree. Instead "Aliens are greedy like us. Supposedly killing off humans means they can get all our gold." Aliens who can travel interstellar distances have the need to exterminate humanity when 16-17th century tradesmen traded realty for shiny beads of glass then have the unmitigated gall to gift those natives with blankets full of cooties. Crappy films are good when they're crowdpleasers but there weren't any joyful moments where humanity got their comeuppance against the aliens.
I expected Blazing Saddles with anal probes. Instead I got JJ Abrams without lens flare.
Re:Steven Spielburg? (Score:5, Insightful)
Turns out that wasn't enough!
Re:Crappy, crappy film (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes an action flick is just that...
Action flicks rarely if ever really have a good plot... We just think they do when we were kids, or teenagers. If you never saw any of the Star Wars movies then watched them (Even excluding the new ones) they would probably joke at the lame plot that they use to show off all the cool special effects.
Why did they need the force? Well as a plot device to show people doing super human things, so they can make these cool special effects with it, did the force really add to the plot much... Lets see...
Boy Find messagers who direct them to a an old general.
General befriends boy and asks him to join him,
Boy rejects then finds guardians dead from bad guy.
Boy goes with general as has nothing else to do.
General finds Rogues to do work No Questions Asked.
General, Boy and Rogues go on quest get caught by Bad Guys.
General, Boy and Rogues try to escape and rescue the Dame.
General works on the escape, while Boy and Rogues find dame.
Dame helps Boy and Rogues escape.
General Finds Bad Guy fights to the death and dies.
Boy takes Generals place.
Boy kills Bad Guys...
Boy becomes Hero.
Now you can take that story plot, and change things around many ways to create hundreds of movies. After such movies we do not gain much insight into anything. They are just fun to watch the special effects, and its easy plot allows our imagination to make us feel like we can be the hero too.
Re:My short review. (Score:4, Insightful)
I always enjoy when someone comes along and says a movie isn't original, not noting the fact that there are no previous big release movies with Cowboys and Aliens that I can recall. I'm sure there may be some hidden in some B-Movie treasure trove, but the fact that a main line studio did this is refreshing rather than re-rehashing some remake done 4 times already.
The movie itself has familiar 'themes' but that's about it. If you go to that extreme, every movie and story told today has similar themes (boy meets girl, good vs bad, yada yada). The movie was better than usual summer fare, with an interesting plot and an unusual story idea. That is to be encouraged, especially when they managed to pull it off as well as they did.
No regrets seeing this one.
Popcorn Movies (Score:3, Insightful)
Y'know, people need to just learn to turn off their brains once in a while. If you really wanna use your brains when you see a movie, don't go to the cinema at the mall, go to the art-house cinema in the college district.
This is where the genre of "popcorn movies" comes into play. It's not great, it's not bad, it's a movie you can enjoy so long as you've got a bit of popcorn to stuff in your face while you watch it. Quite frankly, the last "Steak and Potatoes" movie I saw was "Moon", and I left the theater incredibly happy. The last "Dinner and Nightcap" movie I saw was "Avatar", and I left THAT one a bit dizzy and giggly, wanting a cigarette.
But most of the summer offerings so far have been either Popcorn, or flat out Pepto-Bismol. "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" from last year is a perfect example of a Peptol-Bismol movie, and I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater, but got it from "a friend".
"Cowboys and Aliens"? I'd call this one a "Popcorn, Soda and Hot Dog" movie. It's not a "Steak and Potatoes" movie, but it's got more brains than just a popcorn. You don't need a brain, per se, but if you care to use it, you won't be terribly disappointed. You'll still be a bit peckish when you leave, but not sick over spending 10 bux.
Sequel? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I enjoyed it (Score:4, Insightful)
I also agree.. :)
Well put. Sometimes movies are just supposed to be fun. I mean, seriously? We're praising movies on the one hand that have just as silly a premise as this one, but because someone has a boner against Daniel Craig as James Bond, this movie lacks "substance"? WTF? Didn't the title clue everyone in? (As for Craig, I enjoyed his Bond movies... more than I can say for the last 4 Bonds...)
Now for the rest of you neckbeard Comic Book Guys:
Sometimes movies are just that... fun rides. Who gives a shit if Harrison Ford is arrogant? The man's been in film franchises that grossed a bazillion dollars... and he's a good actor. He's wiping his ass with $100 bills and that sparks jealousy. He doesn't "Burt Reynolds" his way through a part... he's believable.
As for high art in this movie... is everyone missing the fun? All critical folk should look at this movie the way they SHOULD have looked at the Star Wars prequels... through 11-year-old eyes. Stop trying to turn simple action space operas into hard science fiction all the time. You'll live longer. :)
This movie has all the elements:
Cowboys? Check.
Aliens? Check.
Explosions? Check.
Action thrills? Check.
Pretty much pass me the popcorn. If I wanted to watch Shakespeare, I wouldn't go to a movie with the title "Cowboys and Aliens"...
And her name is...? (Score:2, Insightful)
And Iron Man Director Jon Favreau has blown a pretty penny trying to make the whole thing work, getting the sexiest woman alive from Maxim a few years back, as well as a James Bond and a Han Solo to convince you to come to the theater and watch 6-shooters take on the little green men.
Huh... Sexy woman, Bond, and Solo? Perhaps we'll get the names of these three shortly...
The plot: Daniel Craig is a cowboy who wakes up with amnesia and a strange metal wrist band. He runs afoul of a punk kid with a rich daddy (Ford) in a town where blinking lights in the sky show up and lasso people away at night. So Craig and Ford and a ragtag assortment of town folk go looking for their kin, learning about the aliens, and growing beyond their cheesy racism with the local indians, and shooting pistols at alien space ships.
Well, that's two. What about her name?
She's the lead actress, the love interest, and, in your words, the "sexiest woman alive"? Come on, Taco... Surely she has a name, or were you too busy spanking it to her tits to bother looking it up? She even shares top billing on the goddamn poster.
Frankly, Olivia Wilde deserves better than this shiat review.