It gets two stars for its balls, the rest of it was balls
Published: Friday, August 12, 2011
It’s difficult to see this film failing financially. Critically is another matter.
Merging the increasingly unfashionable western genre with the alien sci-fi staple may dissuade die-hards from partaking, but will entice a stupendous plain of open-minded cinema goers.
Add James Bond, Han Solo and Indiana Jones to the brew and the $100m budget looks like it will be safely restored.
But it is a risky project from director Jon Favreau. Joss Whedon’s FireFly – and subsequently Serenity – did something similar but blatant crossover films, not just those including foreign elements or nodding at other-genre influences, are a rare breed.
A spate of graphic-novel-to-big screen efforts have come through in the last ten years merging love stories with fantasy, coming of age and kids’ films with sci-fi, crime and revenge (Kick-Ass, Sin City, Scott Pilgrim) – this formula has since been indoctrinated onto the pages of the cinematic How To.
Sure, action films often mix romantic comedy elements, sci-fi gorefests may include sexy or dramatic plotlines. Shaun of the Dead mixed romance and zombies. Tarantino’s Kill Bill mixed a bunch of influences splicing revenge, fantasy, slasher, drama, love, and spans continents as well as genres.
But the idea of mixing such – excuse the pun – alien concepts requires balls the size of buffalo. Always helps to get Blade Runner involved though.
The film starts with a barren desert landscape presumably somewhere in the mid west circa 1800 on the outskirts of a town called Absolution. An unconscious Daniel Craig awakens, bloodily, not knowing who he is, why he’s there, and what the hell this bracelet thing on his wrist is.
Daniel Craig Cowboys Aliens 300x200 Cowboys and Aliens Jon Favreau
We follow him to the town which is poorly conveyed as a mining community fallen on hard times. It is run by a vicious dictator-type in Harrison Ford’s Woodrow Dolarhyde: a decorated battler and minor sadist feared by the villagers.
Craig’s real identity is revealed before long – around the same time we’re introduced to Olivia Wilde’s Ella who hails from similarly amnesiac origins – and he’s exposed as the outlaw Jake Lonergan. Just in the nick of time a bunch of aliens in spaceships pass overhead; blowing stuff up, stealing townsfolk with a futuristic lasso and dragging them off to wherever it is they’ve come from.
Daniel Craig – the ne’er speak with a surprisingly decent American accent – realises the only effective combative weapon is this bracelet thing he’s lumbered with. He wounds an alien, it hits the ground and runs away.
Leaving tracks in the sand, the alien is heading to friendly turf so the townsfolk embark on a classic western style voyage across the desert to track the beast and see where it takes them.
Lonergan in toe, Dolarhyde assembles a team – including a boy, a woman (Wilde’s Nessa), and his Native American adopted son who he shows nothing but contempt for – to tail the creature across the plains.
The film is built on these shaky foundations. We haven’t decided who and what Harrison Ford is yet which seems a foible, not a trick or character arc mechanism. It flirts with comedy but confuses us a bit more. You call your film Cowboys and Aliens – branding and sales-wise it’s a necessary title, but a bit of a slapstick one – and it suggests there’ll be laughs, but it’s all rather disjointed. We also had the out of context-but-obligatory sixpack fest of seeing Daniel Craig in the shower – which fit the film as a bra fits on a rabbit.
The rest of the journey brought the words kitchen and sink to mind. As they strode the many miles across the desolate landscape – which looked great incidentally – the team encountered cowboy stick-up men, hostile Indians that became friendly (but only following a resurrection and some drugs), big rousing speeches, some biblical references, and character arcs Noah would be proud of. At the end, cowboys; indians; young; old; friends; foes all joined up for the final assault which – as it goes – was an enjoyable set piece.
The script was an enigma: Daniel Craig’s dialogue probably added up to a minute for the whole film – which actually worked for his character – but for the rest the script was a relentless vehicle to move the plot on. That may sound a stupid thing to say – but there was no fun to it. It was all just a bit husky and deliberate. Every single line in the script opened a new avenue or idea. Every single word. It’s a heavy burden to put on a script – a sorely lacking script – which didn’t come off and simply ramped up the cheese factor.
In fact, the whole thing was drenched in a thick fondue.
Harrison Ford Cowboys Aliens 300x200 Cowboys and Aliens Jon Favreau
Along the way Harrison Ford made peace with everyone, there wasn’t a character he didn’t complete his tête à tête with to satisfactorily Spielberg (exec producer) proportions. He made peace with his Native American son, was revealed to be a nice guy underneath it all, passed a very personal dagger onto a young’un who stabbed stuff with it, made amends to his son, accepted the help of Indians …. did some nice things…
It was just a bit too much like mutual masturbation. Every character completed their contra-tong with every other. By the end it was just a bullshittedly harmonious tapestry.
Dear reader you may notice the lack of words about aliens in this piece but that’s only fair. As filmmakers tried to cram so much into a girthy plot and character development it was easy to forget there were big ugly snarling bastards with four hands, two hearts and stinky breath to contend with.
What Favreau looks to have employed was the use it sparingly technique. Every time the aliens came down to rain their destruction on the gang it was bombastic, colossal, relentless …. and a lot of people wound up getting lassoed to the next dimension.
It was supposed to convey the helplessness of the gang over these extra terrestrial bastards who could spontaneously attack any moment, devastating the troupe; and the senses of the cinema audience at no minutes notice. These strong special effects were used so sparsely that this became far far away a Western film more than anything else, disappointing sci-fi fans. The ham-factor was just a bit too much to take in lieu of alien attack scenes which, when they did actually happen, were fairly frightening and well constructed.
The climactic scene summed up the film, the aliens were frightening, there were Madeline moments(“you can control the bracelet with your mind, Jake”), the dialogue crap (see previous brackets) and everyone – from about every possible walk of life – was liking each other just a bit too much. Then the raison d’etre for the aliens being there becomes apparent and you’re just like: come on… I sat through this shit for that?
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