Cowboys & Aliens

When you look at the names of those involved with the making of “Cowboys & Aliens”, it is quite impressive. Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Jon Favreau, Daniel Craig & Harrison Ford are all on one movie poster and I was really excited for this movie. I am sad to say that things didn’t go the way I planned. The movie wasn’t bad but it wasn’t special either. The acting was fine as was the directing but the story did not quite work.

The design of the film was pretty good because in the first few minutes, I believe the environment of the film. I didn’t like Olivia Wilde’s costume however because it stood out too much. I know it is actually symbolic of her true nature but it still bothered me. It looked like she was wearing pajamas the whole movie. I wasn't too impressed with the partial nudity scene either. The story has a nice touch in that people who are usually enemies are seen banding together to survive such as cowboys and Indians or western outlaws with western lawmen. A fun moment in the film is after Jake and Ella destroy the spaceship and swim to shore. They acknowledge the fact that they were flying and in the sci-fi genre, we the audience take that as a norm. This is also a western however, set in time before the Wright brothers flew their plane, and so these characters are in a world where humans don’t fly. I agree with Roger Ebert in that there is more tension when Percy is shooting recklessly in the town then when the aliens show up. The movie is depicted through Jake’s eyes quite a bit and an audience needs a little more info and back-story to be fully entertained. We also needed a bit more dynamics in the story and characters. We had trouble finding someone or something to relate to. Funny enough, the script started with Steve Oedekerk who made “Ace Ventura 2”. The fact that it went through many different writers ending with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who also wrote such films as “Transformers” and “Star Trek”, many have contributed to its story being only moderately entertaining. The huge list of producers also may have allowed this to happen.

The cast did well in this movie. We have both James Bond and his American equivalent Indiana Jones in this movie and that added fun. Daniel Craig’s persona was perfect for Jake as was Harrison Ford’s for the Colonel. I liked Harrison Ford’s first appearance in the movie. It felt iconic. It is great to see Harrison Ford back on a horse. His hat in the film was given a lot of attention so as not to reference Indiana Jones. I noticed that while watching the film before reading that behind-the-scenes fact. His hat was not like the Fedora hat but white and clearly cowboyish. I liked Adam Beach in “Flags of Our Fathers” and he did wonderful in “Cowboys & Aliens”. I have seen Sam Rockwell in “The Green Mile”, “Frost/Nixon”, and Favreau's “Iron Man 2” and his character in this movie was well portrayed by him. He continues to perform well enough that I don't recognize him at first.

I am sad that this movie failed to impress me. I really was looking forward to a fun time. The actors did just fine and other elements of the film were good but the story wasn’t worthy of such talent.

3 Stars