Cowboys & Aliens
It's not that the stuff with the aliens does not fit with the Western story it tells. In fact, it fits incredibly well. My problem lies with how cynical Hollywood seems to have become about life from other worlds. I've pretty much had my fill with movies where big, gooey, CG monsters travel millions of miles through space to arrive on Earth, just so they can lumber around and scream at the camera, or lurk in dark shadows, just so they can jump out and scream. The aliens in the film show no sign of real intelligence. They're bug-eyed beasties that seem to exist simply to be shot, like targets in a video game. Oddly enough, this movie was produced by Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard, two filmmakers who in their earlier years made movies that actually gave us aliens that had something to say, or that we cared about. Spielberg obviously had Close Encounters and E.T., while Howard made Cocoon. Those movies had a sense of wonder about life beyond the stars. Now they're giving us generic CG monsters that ooze slime, and have traveled from a far away world just so they can look ugly and get killed by their human co-stars. I don't call this an improvement.
So, let's focus on what does work - the Western elements that are at the center of the story. As expected, the film opens with a stranger walking into town. In this case, the stranger is a man named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a man who has no past, because he can't remember anything about who he is, or where he came from. He especially doesn't know why he has a strange futuristic-looking device locked onto his arm that kind of looks like a hi-tech bracelet, or why he has a mysterious wound on his body. Heck, he doesn't even know that his name is Jake, until someone in town recognizes his face on a Wanted poster. It's an interesting hook to kick the movie off with. Jake obviously has a past with the people in this town, but he doesn't remember a thing, not even how he got here. Not long after arriving in town, he runs afoul of the town bully, Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), who is the arrogant adult son of the iron-fisted cattle rancher who runs the town. We meet Percy's father, Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), soon after, and learn that he's a cruel man who tortures his employees when they don't give him the answer he wants to hear.
Once again, we're intrigued. Here's Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford in the lead roles, and they are both obviously playing very dark men. Craig's Lonergan has no memory of his past, but everyone seems to know about a big gold heist he pulled recently. That gold belonged to Ford's Dolarhyde, and when he rides into town, a standoff begins between the two. This is right about the moment we would get a shootout in the street, but instead, strange lights appear in the night sky above. The lights turn out to be spaceships that bombard the town with advanced weaponry, and kidnap most of the local townsfolk. It's also at this time that Jake learns that the bracelet he has attached to his arm is actually a weapon capable of firing blasts of energy. Where did it come from? One of the villagers seems familiar with it - She's Ella (Olivia Wilde), a woman who has dealt with the aliens (or "demons" as the townsfolk mistake them for) before, and seems to know a lot about Jake's past, and what happened to him. Wanting to know more about these creatures, and rescue the townsfolk, Jake and Dolarhyde must make a shaky truce to work together, and ride off to track down the aliens with the help of some Old West cliches including the town preacher, bartender, a cute kid, and an even cuter dog.
As silly as it sounds, Cowboys & Aliens really does take itself seriously, and is probably better for it. I have read that this script has been long in development, and was a comedy at one point. But, when Favreau and his team stepped in, they decided to play up the serious Western element of the story. Smart move, as it gives the movie a gritty bit of sincerity amongst the ludicrous goings on. We get your beautiful sweeping desert vistas, western towns on the verge of collapse under a tyrannical ruler, the old saloon, Native American warriors who whoop and yell, and all the usual trappings of a classic Western. The only difference are the spaceships flying overhead, the bug-eyed monsters that are piloting them.
Like I said before, these aren't the smartest aliens to invade Earth. They've apparently come for our gold ("It's valuable to them", we learn.), and to study us, so they can learn our weaknesses and use it to their advantage when they come back with larger forces for a bigger invasion, I guess. Fair enough. But the aliens either just lumber about looking dumb, or they wait to jump out in front of people, and not do anything, giving the humans ample time to draw their gun and fire. The aliens also have the most curious feature - Their chests open up, revealing small slimy hands that reach out from their internal organs. What the point of this is, I am not sure. It does not really give the aliens any sort of advantage. It's also kind of silly and cumbersome when you think about it.
Regardless, this is a well-made movie. Craig and Ford have the grizzled anti-hero look and act down, and do a good job playing off each other. There's a pretty big cast of recognizable character actors that make up the townspeople, and everybody fills their role well. The effects, set design, and camera work all do a good job of blending the traditional Western with more modern Sci-Fi elements, without making anything seem out of place. In fact, I'm quite surprised the movie works as well as it does, considering there are five different writers credited to the script, with two more credited for the story. Usually in cases like this, the movie falls apart from too many people contributing ideas. But here, it holds itself up pretty well. I don't know if I'll remember much about the movie months from now, but I liked it enough while I was watching it that I'm recommending it.
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