Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

I was kind of hoping the Western had made a comeback. Last year, the Coens brought us their excellent new adaptation of True Grit, which was not only a great Western on par with the original starring John Wayne, it was also financially successful and popular with audiences. That should have paved the way for more of its kind. I would love for studios to start greenlighting proper Westerns again. For the first little while of Cowboys and Aliens, I sort of got what I wanted. There is a hint of what could have been had the entire movie been a new, old-fashioned adventure story. It's entertaining and even exciting. Then the aliens show up. Being as big a Sci-fi fan as I am a Western one, I have no actual problem with aliens, but their presence in this film is not only unnecessary, it's unwanted. I feel like this was a cop-out on the part of the people who made it, perhaps thinking that a movie that doesn't have computer-generated thrills won't sell. It's already proven that that isn't the case. Not to mention that it doesn't seem like audiences really wanted to see such a bizarre hybrid to begin with, if the fact that The Smurfs beat Cowboys and Aliens at the box office means anything. In the end, it only proves that it was a waste.

At the beginning of the movie, Daniel Craig is sitting in the middle of the desert and he notices an odd metal thing attached to his arm. He beats some guys up and can't remember who he is. He ends up getting mixed up with a slightly sinister Harrison Ford character and they both go after the aliens who have stolen loved ones from just about everyone in town. There is a horrible scene a little later on in which one of the aliens is shown full-on for the first time. The scene fakes suspense for a brief period in a way reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds, meaning it isn't very intense. When the alien is revealed, there is nothing special about it, short of some hideous arms that stick out of its stomach. The scene is underwhelming and comes too early. Something this movie doesn't get, that even Super 8 realized to some extent, is that the longer something is unknown, the scarier it is. The silly scene I've mentioned then leads to Daniel Craig having flashbacks and explicitly remembering every little thing about his alien abduction, including the stupid way he got the gadget on his wrist. These moments have a very Saturday morning television feel to them, and when adding them to the increasingly dumb plot, you get a movie that even stupid people will question.

I am well aware that this movie was based on a graphic novel or something and I don't really care. If this movie is anything like its source material, I wouldn't have enjoyed that either. You can't blame the material because director Jon Favreau is the same man who made the two decent Iron Man movies, bringing new life to an old comic. The whole thing is very much in the now, with very little patience to develop into something more interesting. It just keeps moving at a quick enough pace to make sure it doesn't lose anyone and to also keep its flaws as hidden as possible. There are many flaws, from the blandness of both the science fiction and ultimately western aspects of the story, to the vague one-note characters, to something as simple as the layout of the alien's ship. Craig makes his way into the ship through a tunnel that goes straight out again, but with every captured human just standing in the middle of it. They are easily rescued and, because of the architecture, are able to just walk right out. Did nobody think this through? At any rate, I still respect Harrison Ford, who is, even here, a great actor. With every scene of growling and twitching, he has a far more impressive presence than anyone else involved.

I do not feel this movie needed to be made. I do not see how it will ever obtain a large fanbase and therefore, I hope this puts any more similarly crazy ideas out of studios' heads. I am always on the look-out for a movie that brings something different and unique to the table, and Cowboys and Aliens is certainly different, yet in a strangely predictable way. There will be some who will be seduced by its showmanship, but most people should find it empty and unfulfilling.

5/10