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#11 - Cowboys and Aliens
Jon Favreau, 2011
A bunch of cowboys fight a bunch of aliens.
Okay, for real this time: in the Wild West, an amnesiac cowboy (Daniel Craig) wanders into a small town and stirs up some trouble with a cattle baron (Harrison Ford) just in time for a bunch of alien spaceships to abduct most of the townsfolk. Craig and Ford reluctantly join forces (along with a bunch of other mismatched characters) in order to find the aliens and take back what's theirs.
As if the title didn't give me enough of a hint, the fact that there are no less than eight screenwriters (three for the screen story based on the source comic book and another five that contributed to the screenplay) named in the opening credits should have been enough of a warning sign that I was in for one messy excuse for a blockbuster. I can't speak as to the quality of the source comic, but the movie that resulted...well, where do I begin? Characters are flat archetypes whose development is predictable at best and inconsistent at worst (the biggest offender being Ford, whose character manages to go from a corrupt landowner willing to physically torture employees over some dead cows to a sympathetic Civil War veteran who slowly bonds with the other characters - this development is more than a little jarring). Craig plays a real Man with No Name kind of character who slowly regains his memories (at one point getting them all back as a result of a Native American ritual, no less), but even so his backstory and character arc are awfully predictable and unsatisfactory. Even Olivia Wilde's turn as a mysterious woman who's drawn to Craig seems like she might get something interesting to do but what she does get is extremely illogical. Other characters are basically window dressing and you can easily pick what happens with a lot of them, if not all of them.
For a big-budget effects-laden blockbuster, it's pretty damn boring for the most part. As if unsurprising character developments aren't enough, the action just kind of...happens, with the only memorable parts being so because of how it's a bit too implausible and illogical (such as Craig's character riding a horse alongside an alien drone and being able to jump onto the drone from the horse, or the general poorness of the climatic battle). This stuff doesn't make much sense even within the context of the kind of movie that unapologetically calls itself Cowboys and Aliens. You'd think that having a name like that would mean that this film was at least a little tongue-in-cheek about its ludicrous premise, but no, it plays out as straight-faced and blandly as possible. As a result, it feels like a film that would end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 but with the budget multipled by ten thousand. Then again, given the quality of this movie's other attributes I think the only thing that would make it significantly worse would be jokes that didn't work.
On the plus side...I guess the effects are alright sometimes. The climax does kind of play out like District 9 on a bigger yet strangely inferior scale. Also, there is a lot of blue and orange in this movie. I mean, a lot. Some of the photography looks alright - at least the stuff that's not too dark for you to see much, of course. Otherwise, yeah, this is a dud of the highest order. It has just enough intrigue to keep me invested in what's happening, which I concede is a strength, but that hardly makes up for the thin plotline, poorly developed characters and effects of dubious quality. It's a shame because the TimeSplitters games gave me ridiculously high hopes for how a "cowboys versus aliens" conflict would play out and that's what led me to check this out in the first place - unfortunately, this film is no place for fun and games.
Jon Favreau, 2011
A bunch of cowboys fight a bunch of aliens.
Okay, for real this time: in the Wild West, an amnesiac cowboy (Daniel Craig) wanders into a small town and stirs up some trouble with a cattle baron (Harrison Ford) just in time for a bunch of alien spaceships to abduct most of the townsfolk. Craig and Ford reluctantly join forces (along with a bunch of other mismatched characters) in order to find the aliens and take back what's theirs.
As if the title didn't give me enough of a hint, the fact that there are no less than eight screenwriters (three for the screen story based on the source comic book and another five that contributed to the screenplay) named in the opening credits should have been enough of a warning sign that I was in for one messy excuse for a blockbuster. I can't speak as to the quality of the source comic, but the movie that resulted...well, where do I begin? Characters are flat archetypes whose development is predictable at best and inconsistent at worst (the biggest offender being Ford, whose character manages to go from a corrupt landowner willing to physically torture employees over some dead cows to a sympathetic Civil War veteran who slowly bonds with the other characters - this development is more than a little jarring). Craig plays a real Man with No Name kind of character who slowly regains his memories (at one point getting them all back as a result of a Native American ritual, no less), but even so his backstory and character arc are awfully predictable and unsatisfactory. Even Olivia Wilde's turn as a mysterious woman who's drawn to Craig seems like she might get something interesting to do but what she does get is extremely illogical. Other characters are basically window dressing and you can easily pick what happens with a lot of them, if not all of them.
For a big-budget effects-laden blockbuster, it's pretty damn boring for the most part. As if unsurprising character developments aren't enough, the action just kind of...happens, with the only memorable parts being so because of how it's a bit too implausible and illogical (such as Craig's character riding a horse alongside an alien drone and being able to jump onto the drone from the horse, or the general poorness of the climatic battle). This stuff doesn't make much sense even within the context of the kind of movie that unapologetically calls itself Cowboys and Aliens. You'd think that having a name like that would mean that this film was at least a little tongue-in-cheek about its ludicrous premise, but no, it plays out as straight-faced and blandly as possible. As a result, it feels like a film that would end up on Mystery Science Theater 3000 but with the budget multipled by ten thousand. Then again, given the quality of this movie's other attributes I think the only thing that would make it significantly worse would be jokes that didn't work.
On the plus side...I guess the effects are alright sometimes. The climax does kind of play out like District 9 on a bigger yet strangely inferior scale. Also, there is a lot of blue and orange in this movie. I mean, a lot. Some of the photography looks alright - at least the stuff that's not too dark for you to see much, of course. Otherwise, yeah, this is a dud of the highest order. It has just enough intrigue to keep me invested in what's happening, which I concede is a strength, but that hardly makes up for the thin plotline, poorly developed characters and effects of dubious quality. It's a shame because the TimeSplitters games gave me ridiculously high hopes for how a "cowboys versus aliens" conflict would play out and that's what led me to check this out in the first place - unfortunately, this film is no place for fun and games.