*Warning: Spoilers ahead!*
I shouldn't have taken almost a month off from blogging. My bad. Especially since my Captain America: The First Avenger review was my most-read article yet. I'm not going to blame laziness, that would be too easy and correct; instead i'll blame the fact i'm watching Batman: The Animated Series again.
That and the final season of Entourage. Also i'm playing through Deus Ex: Human Revolution and spending time playing the Call of Duty: Black Ops Rezurrection DLC. Yeah I blame Activision, that'll work. Gets everyone else through the day.
Speaking of video games, I haven't reviewed a new game for a while. This is partly because there has been nothing of note out in the past three months. In fact, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is the first game i've bought since L.A Noire back in May (not including DLC or map packs). I may review Deus Ex, but i'm not promising.
Hopefully i'll have more video game stuff going up soon. The problem with reviews is you have to play through the game first, which usually ranges from 10-40 hours. So by the time i've finished playing, the games been out for weeks and nobody needs a review then. So I may do other video game articles, we'll see.
Anyway, I seemed to have gone off on a tangent.
So I went to see Cowboys & Aliens on Saturday. Its been out for two weeks now and seems to have dropped off everyones radars. It kinda, sorta, bombed in the USA. It was beaten by The Smurfs in the box office on its first week of release, which surprised pretty much everyone. In the UK, everyone decided to go see The Inbetweeners Movie and forget everything else ever existed. So Cowboys & Aliens fell by the wayside here too.
In fact, the showing I went to only had about eight people in it. This was a midday showing on a Saturday. So poor form really. However, in terms of money, the film has grossed $128 million worldwide so far on a $168 million budget, so it should easily recoup through home release.
Anyway, here are my thoughts on Jon Favreau's latest...
- I didn't know what to expect going in to this film. I thought it might be campy, or the premise played for laughs. However, this is a very good, solid summer blockbuster. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
- The film works so well because it is played completely straight. There isn't the slightest hint of goofiness or camp anywhere at all. However, that's where the problem lies. This is a straight-up Western film with hints of Sci-fi, but the title implies something completely different. The title 'Cowboys & Aliens' is too pulpy and trashy for a film of this kind. I think this is why the film has struggled to find an audience in cinemas. No-one knows what to expect. The title sounds like a straight-to-DVD B movie. When that isn't the case at all. It's a shame really, because in a summer where we've had such garbage as Transformers 3 and Green Lantern (allegedly, I haven't seen it myself, so going on word-of-mouth here), audiences have missed out on good movie.
- It was so refreshing to see a film actually filmed on location and not just in front of a green screen. How much better films are for real locations like that. You can't replicate real beauty in the world using a computer. I really enjoyed the cinematography of this movie, some of the locations were gorgeous to look at. In fact, the CGI in this film is really well-done. It's not in your face, it's not overly-distracting, and it's used only where necessary.
- The plot is straight-up Western material, except there are aliens involved. It's a simple plot and it works. Aliens kidnap residents of this small mining town and the town teams-up to defeat the aliens and get them back. You could replace the aliens with Indians or outlaws and you've got yourself a John Wayne movie. Again, it's refreshing to have a film with a simple, engaging plot that doesn't have ten different sub-plots going on or a 45 minute sequence where Shia Labeouf looks for a job for no reason. (I apologise that aspects of Transformers 3 still creep into my reviews, but it was the WORST THING EVER MADE BY ANY HUMAN EVER. It's hard to forget, i'm still recovering.)
- This was a very well-acted film with a great cast from top to bottom. Daniel Craig was born to play a cowboy. His mix of ruthlessness and sensitivity worked really well. Harrison Ford looked like he was having the most fun he's had in front of a camera for decades. When Ford cares and isn't there just to pick up a pay-cheque, he's a fantastic addition to any movie. At first I thought Olivia Wilde was playing her character really strange, however later on in the story it makes perfect sense and she was very solid in this. Sam Rockwell is awesome in everything, that's pretty much it.
- I have created a new game whereby if you spot someone Don Draper has slept with on Mad Men in any film, you score a point. I'm up by one as I spotted Abigail Spencer.
- I really like the aliens in this film. I can't say i've seen many of the alien films already released this year, so can't comment on what they look like, but the aliens in Cowboys & Aliens look really original and cool. They make sense from a physiology point-of-view and look both dangerous and menacing when seen. It also makes sense they struggle to operate in daylight as most planets don't have sunlight like we do. However, i'm not sure on the creepy arms.
- "Why do they need gold? Are they going to buy things?". A lot of people are pointing out that the fact it's never explained why the aliens need gold is a plot-hole. Well it isn't. It doesn't affect the plot in anyway to know what they need it for. I like to see it that gold to the aliens is like oil to us, and they've depleted their supply on their planet and so are looking off-world for other sources. But that's just my interpretation. That's the fun of it.
Verdict:
To quote Rogert Ebert, "as preposterous moneymakers go, it's ambitious and well-made. The acting from the large cast is of a high standard, Craig and Ford were more or less born into their roles, and director Jon Favreau actually develops his characters and gives them things to do, instead of posing them in front of special effects."
This film won't be to everybody's taste, but in a summer of largely disappointing bloackbusters, Cowboys & Aliens deserves more recognition and attention. The title doesn't do the film justice, if you're a fan of westerns or aliens, you won't be disappointed. I mean, where else would you see James Bond and Indiana Jones team-up?
4/5
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