COWBOYS AND ALIENS
Starring Daniel Craig,
Harrison Ford,
Abigail Spencer,
Paul Dano,
Adam Beach,
Sam Rockwell,
Noah Ringer,
Keith Carrdine
Directed by Jon Favreau
Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzmann, Damon Lindelof,
Mark Fergus, Hawk Otsby
Based on a screen story by Mark Fergus, Hawk Otsby, Steve Oedekerk
Based on a Platinum Studios comic book by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg
Running time 118 mins.
Rated PG-13
The number one surprise with “Cowboys and Aliens” is how not campy it is. If you don’t expect any buddy movie banter between the leads, you’ll have a smoother time, too. “Men in Black” in sage brush, “Cowboys and Aliens” ain’t.
Upshot: Lean, mean Wanted Man cowboy (Craig) in Wild West times has a wound in his side and a weird, outer space-y device on his wrist, and won’t cow tow to the son of the richest man (Ford) in the dirty little town. This gets him into more trouble, and along the way, aliens show up. Aliens what need gittin’.
It makes for an interesting mash-up. Sort of “3:10 to Yuma” meets “District 9" in the serious-looking Western mixed with bipedal, monstrous aliens.
I don’t know that it’s really the right role for Harrison Ford, though. He doesn’t play the unlikeable guy very well. I think he knows that audiences see him permanently associated with Indiana Jones and Han Solo, and so he consciously chooses roles to go against that type. And he’s a good enough actor that he can do it. But there are lots of other actors who could play the role without being quite so distracting.
Or maybe I was distracted more by expectations from the poster. It looks like Butch and Sundance, just the two of them. But the movie’s nothing like that. Not the big buddy festival at all.
And a darn fine supporting cast, too. The dude that Daniel Day-Lewis slaps around in “There Will Be Blood” plays the son here quite memorably. Another guy, the Luca Brasi-ish thick skull in “The Departed,” is perfect as the rising Irish bandit leader.
But it’s the lack of cutesiness one finds so startlingly refreshing. It is entirely unique in film to see so earnest a Western with trippy, bug-like UFO aliens leapin’ around, killin’ folk.
“Tremors” and “Eight-Legged Freaks” are similarly campy yet slightly hardcore. “Cowboys and Aliens” is nothing like that.
It’s not a great Western. And it’s not standout sci-fi. But somehow “Cowboys and Aliens” really is a great movie because playing it so serious gives it quite the quirky tone.
Well worth checking out.
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