Cowboys and Aliens (2011)

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Cowboys and Aliens

6/10

Starring
Daniel Craig
Harrison Ford
Olivia Wilde

Directed by Jon Favreau

Distributed by Universal Pictures (United States) and Paramount Pictures (International)

Cowboys and Aliens, or better still ‘Cowboys Vs Aliens’

This movie is a mixture of two genres: western and Sci – Fi. The idea of aliens attacking and humans fighting back using modern tech, computers and gadgets is kind of getting old. So director Jon Favreau (Iron Man), managed to wrangle this movie out of at least 9 screenwriters of how aliens attack earth and all we have are cowboys, with help of Indians and an escaped alien abductee who has alien weaponry attached to his arm.[Kaching! He thought he had a masterpiece]

The movie begins with Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig, feeling all 'Eastwoody' ), waking up in the middle of nowhere with a wound in his side and having no memory of who he is or how he got where he is and where he is. Even the fact that a strange bracelet is strapped around his wrist isn’t enough to jog his memory.

Lonergan goes into town (a phrase you only get to use when talking about a western) where he meets Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) who plays the baddie in the movie and his spoiled son (Paul Dano).

Then things get off track as sudden lights appear in the horizon, "The aliens are coming, in a flying thingy, Run!!!"

Metallic kind lassos are coming down from this flying machines and scooping people up, and they are shooting lasers, bullets proved useless, but then Jake’s bracelet lights up and turns out to be a “weapon” which he uses to blasts one of the ships and it crashes down.

So led by Harrison Ford (whose son too was picked up by the lasso thingy) and Craig and some of the town folks decide to chase down these flying machines and retrieve their missing loved ones.

The casting and acting were not that good, but the delivery itself was okay, so kudos to Favreau there. Olivia Wilde was fun to watch, as she and Craig pulled off a likeable pair.

The pros of the movie are centered on the setting and screenplay, as the writers don't lose you along the way as we watch Craig try to get his memory back and still being a wanted man and also an alien chaser. Aliens in the sky in a western movie, it seems strange but the setting of the movie was done to accommodate this, as the aliens themselves looked a little outdated, not like the ones that attack during this modern era.

In general the movie is just a good time waster.

As summer winds up, this movie feels out of place. It would probably have gone down well during the summer period [sometime between the Fast Five, Kungfu Panda 2 and Transformers 3].