Cowboys & Aliens, 2011.
Directed by Jon Favreau.
Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Clancy Brown and Keith Carradine.
SYNOPSIS:
A posse of cowboys attempt to defend Earth from extraterrestrial invaders.
Cowboys and Aliens. Now there’s a high concept movie title if I ever heard one. There are cowboys. There are aliens. And that’s pretty much it. But here is one summer blockbuster that doesn’t try to be overly complicated with a simple concept, yet doesn’t surrender its integrity by dumbing down to usual CGI mindless fare.
Cowboys and Aliens is a film you either go along with and buy into the situation, or you don’t. I don’t believe anyone out there will fall into the middle ground of liking the ‘cowboy’ but disliking the ‘alien’, or vice versa. The two elements on their own are not enough to save this film, but put together, they make for a unique summer experience.
The plot couldn’t be simpler; it’s the year 1873. Daniel Craig is Jake Lonergan, a tough man of few words who wakes up one day not knowing his name, where he is, or why he’s wearing a strange-looking bracelet on his wrist. Harrison Ford is Woodrow Dolarhyde, a tough man of slightly more words who strikes fear into everyman he meets and has a reputation as a leader of men from the Civil War. The two men have a chequered past as Lonergan has stolen gold from Dolarhyde in the past.
So far, so good, and so formulaic. Then the aliens spaceships arrive, and the two men have to work together to defeat the aliens – Dolarhyde’s son has been kidnapped, and Lonergan might just know the aliens from before and can use the braclet on his wrist to defeat them.
Essentially that is your $165 million offering. A great cast, some pretty good effects, and the usual stunning scenery that goes with any western worth its salt.
One aspect which makes the film work so well is its tone. It never lets up for a moment, and this is a serious, dark, violent (for a 12A rated film), and moody blockbuster. There are some comic touches (mostly from the always dependable Sam Rockwell) but it is mostly a film for a mature audience; I don’t see the enjoyment here for the under 16’s and that has been reflected in it’s US box office takings – less than $100 million in 4 weeks. Yet the film was marketed as a CGI-fest, which may have put the mature audience off; after the never ending supply chain that comes each summer, there are only so many films you can keep shelling out $12 a ticket for. This one such casualty.
I also liked the balance between the western and the sci-fi. This is primarly a western, 75% of the film is firmly in that genre with only Lonergan’s alien braclet looking out of place at any time. The sci-fi elements penetrate the western, and it is jarring to see the spaceships and bluelights in the sky when they appear, but it is a credit to the writers that the sci-fi doesn’t take over the story. It easily could have done to ramp up the CGI and ‘money shots’ for the trailers, but thankfully this isn’t the case.
I never thought I’d say this but congratulations must go to director Jon Favreau. He handles the action scenes well and they don’t come across as pedestrian and, frankly, boring as his two Iron Man films. This is because of the historical setting, where the only Lonergan’s bracelet delivers the ‘awe’ factor – the rest of the action is mostly grounded with six shooters, spears, bows and arrows, knives and chases on horseback. This forces Favreau to deliver clear and compelling scenes of action where the answer doesn’t lie in just explosions and the always unpleasant CGI vs CGI ‘character’ battles. Moreover, there are only three action scenes, including the traditional cowboys vs Indians finale, but with the cowboys and Indians working together to defeat the common threat. A nice touch. The rest of the picture is made up of scenes where we get to know the characters and their background, and we are treated to the luscious scenery at every opportunity.
The pedigree involved in making the film certainly helps in its success. On screen Craig and Ford are perfect in their roles, and the supporting cast of Olivia Wilde, Clancy Brown and Adam Beach (the go to guy for a Native American supporting role) all have plenty to do, although Sam Rockwell’s talent is slightly wasted in an underwritten, and ultimately needless, character. He deserves better from such a big film.
Behind the camera is Jon Favreau making easily his best work. Ron Howard produces, and has a love for the west as was seen in his own movies Far And Away, The Missing, and he served as producer on The Alamo remake. Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman can be hit (M:I-III, Star Trek) and miss (Transformers 1 and 2, The Island) but this sees them mostly on target. There are a few plot holes, and the alien’s motivation is never entirely clear, but there’s enough here to suppress any fears of it not being any fun.
Normally, when a filmmaker is credited as being an ‘executive producer’, you can be pretty sure that means next to nothing and serves as just a name to put on the poster and trailer. Take Steven Spielberg for example. God only knows how he has allowed his good name and reputation to be stained with a credit on the Transformers trilogy, because nothing in those films even resembles his touch. In Cowboys and Aliens however, there is evidence to suggest he had a hand in a lot of the pre-production and alien aspects. War of the Worlds is heavily borrowed from but never quite plagiarised. In interviews I’ve heard Favreau talk of Spielberg giving him classic westerns to watch, and gave him a running commentary on John Ford’s The Searchers (not only one of the greatest westerns made, but one of the greatest examples of American cinema of any genre). Mr Favreau was obviously given a good lesson or two from the master, because this is a marked improvement in directorial ability.
Was Lonergan’s pause in the doorway towards the end a nod to Ethan Edward’s at the end of The Searchers? I think it was.
Simply because it fuses the two genres together so well, Cowboys and Aliens deserves to be seen. The fact that it is exciting, tense, visually arresting, and carried along by two excellent male leads makes it even better.
VERDICT: 8 OUT OF 10 – Too much good fun to focus on its negatives, of which there are few. A mature and refreshing blockbuster.
Rohan Morbey – follow me on Twitter.
Movie Review Archive
Originally published August 26, 2011. Updated April 10, 2018.
