In 7 words or less: Favreau wants to be Clint (and Ridley)
What's it all About? Man (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the desert wearing a very fancy bangle, goes into town and meets every western stereotype you've ever seen. There's a bar owner called Doc with glasses who's a bit weedy (Sam Rockwell), his Sinorita wife, a man I genuinely mistook for Lee Marvin (and/or Sam Elliott - the former being dead an' all) and a mean spoilt brat who's daddy (Harrison Ford) owns the town. So far, so typical (if predictable) Western. And then, out of nowhere, and with no real reason, aliens appear. Noisy aliens with super speedy ships and lasers. In the Wild West. Fancy bangle turns out to be great at killing aliens. This should be the time to start whooping, right? Nope.
Best bits? The trailer. At a push, if I'm being kind...when the native americans turn up and the pretty girl (Olivia Wilde) turns out to be more than she seems.
Did it make you think thoughts? Why on Earth did Harrison Ford agree to do this? (and that dreadful 4th Indy movie)
For a film that should be a brilliant, camp romp of a movie, it is so unbelievably, brain itchingly, DULL. It takes itself FAR too seriously and despite the cast, you don't warm to any character, nor care when the aliens start abducting them. I actually went and emptied the dishwasher and repacked it during this movie, it was so dull. I HATE packing the dishwasher.
I genuinely believe that Jon Favreau wants to be taking seriously with this film; the cowboy bits are beautifully shot with lovely expansive landscape scenes, sparse dialogue and conflicted anti-heroes (we never really establish whether Daniel Craig's character is for good or for ill) and the alien bits are straight out of Alien, including a creature that so resembles the creature in Ridley Scott's movie, that it even has tentacles that appear from an inner mouth - HR Giger should sue! AND YET... it's really, really very boring.
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| How can you name a movie called Cowboys & Aliens and make it dull!? |
This is what I kept shouting at the TV throughout the film. It should be FUN, there should be an element of knowingness to the film, it should, quite frankly, be a ROMP.
I should like this film, after all I LOVE Clint Eastwood westerns - really, truly adore them. I could watch Outlaw Josie Wales on repeat. I even enjoyed A Perfect World and that has Kevin Costner in it and NOTHING happens in that movie.
I've tried to dissect exactly why it doesn't work and I think it's this: they were so impressed with themselves for coming up with the title, they forgot to write a film to go with it.
Would you watch it again? Not if had a choice.
Rating (out of 100%) 29% (I'm being kind)
