Cowboys & Aliens Review

Cowboys & Aliens Review

I liked the idea of a sci-fi western. Like peanut butter and chocolate they are two types of movies that are good alone, and could be great together. When a movie promises spectacular action, and clever humor you hope that it delivers. The trailer for Cowboys & Aliens very much promised us this. Unfortunately it didn't deliver.

The reason that the movie doesn't work can be chalked up to one blaring and glaring reason. It was just dull. Between the action sequences, which were not very earth shattering, I would have hopped there would be some humor, or clever dialog, or even some lead up events, or exposition. Unfortunately there is literally nothing between the action sequences in this movie. The dialogue is wooden, the acting is mediocre, and the characters are flat and one dimensional.

What is even more disappointing were the action sequences. The trailer was definitely awesome, especially the action sequences, they seemed to promise something groundbreaking, at the very least it looked like a very solid base in which to build upon.  This would have been true if 100% of the action scenes weren't displayed in the trailer itself. For a movie like this, a summer blockbuster to give away all the best scenes in the trailer is unforgivable. Why pay money to see a movie like this if we already saw the best parts 10 times before in the trailer. The alien spaceships were nothing remarkable, and to be honest even the aliens themselves were bland. Jon Faverau has been very successful at blending practical and computer effects, he did a beautiful job of it in Zathura, and it was virtually undetectable in the first Iron Man, but this time he failed miserably. You can definitely see the seems in his creature effects this time

Now on to Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. Daniel Craig did a great job, of course he didn't have to do much other than pose, look tough and perform a few stunts to look like a bad ass in this movie. Harrison Ford on the other hand once again showed that it's time for him to retire the action hero, and shift to different roles. In Cowboys & Aliens I think Harrison Ford was trying to do what Sean Connery did 20 years ago with the Untouchables. What Connery did in that movie was to step back as the hero character, and become more of a mentor. Of course this character is nothing close to the character Connery had in The Untouchables. Also noticeably absent was any chemistry between the two. You would think two stars of this caliber would have had the ability to work off one another. Perhaps it is the fault of the script, but these two characters should have had more to do together. I know they were adversaries forced to work together, but even that wasn't clear in their performances.

For those who are looking for a better sci-fi film that mixes in another genre you might be better off trying to find Super 8 in your area. Super 8, which came out less than two months ago, is a far superior movie and also delivers a far scarier, and believable alien.