Tags:
Film: Cowboys & Aliens
Year: 2011
Director: Jon Favreau
Writer: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby
Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde
Review:
This film begins with a man waking up on a desolate plain. He wakes up to find a picture of a woman next him. He has a cut on his lower abdomen and has a metal bracelet on his wrist. He is played by Daniel Craig. First thing he tries to do is to take off the bracelet, but it won’t budge. While he does this, three men happen upon him and Craig takes care of all three, taking from them what he needs, including boots, a vest and a gun belt. He doesn’t remember much about himself.
He takes one of their horses and gets into town. While there he goes into a man’s house to clean up. He doesn’t realize he is still there, the man is played by Clancy Brown and he is the local preacher. Brown sews up Craig’s wound that isn’t a gunshot and is already cauterized.
A commotion outside draws their attention, which is the son of the richest man in the town, played by Noah Ringer, is shooting at random things and irritating the town. He shoots mostly at the salon and its owner, who is played by Sam Rockwell. Finally though, Craig stands up to him and hits him. Ringer shoots wildly, hitting a deputy and getting arrested.
It cuts to a herd that is owned by Ringer’s father, who turns out to be Harrison Ford. A man has been drinking on the job and goes to use the bathroom when a bright light appears. The next thing they know, the cattle and the two other men are gone. The cattle are burned and the earth scorched.
It turns out back in town that Craig is actually a wanted fugitive. A beautiful woman begins talking to him at the bar, she is played by Olivia Wilde, but when the sheriff comes in, she helps bring him in. That night he and Ringer are set to be transported to Santa Fe, but something else arrives and changes that plan completely. Something that sets these men and women off on a journey, a journey of recuses and revenge. Aliens have attacked the Wild West and this town.
This film is pretty good. It has almost everything good westerns need and then it mixes the element of science fiction with that. The biggest thing I’ve noticed about it and it lived up to what I thought. All alien films take place in the present and we have more modern weapons to fight them. It was nice to see that this one had weapons from the Wild West used to fight a more advanced species. To see how they do really is a look at the human spirit.
The acting was good. Craig is great at the emotionless hero, or in the case of this one, antihero. Ford was good as the older, mean, rich man. Rockwell and Ringer have great supporting roles as well. Wilde is looking great and her eyes are just amazing, there are a couple scenes in this one where you really get to see them.
Now I am adding this film to the horror film research, because an advanced alien species attacking Earth is scaring to begin with. If these aliens attacked today, we would have tough time going with the weapons we have. What makes this film interesting is that they are using the weapons that tamed the West to fight them. Now Craig does have a weapon on his wrist that was taken from the aliens. I consider aliens attacking Earth and people fighting back to have enough horror film element for this film to loosely be a horror film.
All in all, this is a solid film. It tried to do something different and it did a nice job at doing that. It is entertaining. There is a little bit of comedy and I don’t usually care for westerns, but this one is solid in that. It is nice as well with the sci-fi mix. I would recommend giving this one a viewing.
My Rating: 7 out of 10