Cowboys and Aliens (not really a) Movie Review

Star Wars Chick totally missed this but for me the most epic scene in the film was:

When Harrison Ford butted Daniel Craig with his rifle and Craig in turn punched Ford in the face... and then they pause, stare at each other, and you just see the recognition of two bad-asses acknowledging one another for what they are, signifying they are equals, and that there will be no further need to test one another. Capturing that moment between Indiana Jones and James Bond just made me want to cheer.
 
Scareb said:
It wasn't great, it wasn't bad. I enjoyed it but I had trouble really getting attached to the characters. Everytime something happened to a character, I was like "meh"

I wish they would of explained what exactly the gold was being used for. Were the aliens just a bunch of gold miners pan handling in the yukon so to speak?
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I actually thought the immediacy of the moment and the sole focus of rescue outweighed the need for lengthy explanations and I am REALLY glad they didn't try to go into it. I was terrified they were going to ruin the film with some lame environmental message and was so glad they didn't go there. I would rather those in-depth explanations be left up to our imagination instead of one of the characters wasting minutes of film with painfully written back-story and exposition.
 
When Harrison Ford butted Daniel Craig with his rifle and Craig in turn punched Ford in the face... and then they pause, stare at each other, and you just see the recognition of two bad-asses acknowledging one another for what they are, signifying they are equals, and that there will be no further need to test one another. Capturing that moment between Indiana Jones and James Bond just made me want to cheer.

Of course "The Big Man conversation" is a staple of these kinds of flicks, but it absolutely was the first one I can recall consisting of two punches and hard looks for the rest of the scene. Those two did some great acting there.
 
Art Andrews said:
I actually thought the immediacy of the moment and the sole focus of rescue outweighed the need for lengthy explanations and I am REALLY glad they didn't try to go into it.
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Not to mention they totally did explain it. "Gold is as valuable and rare to them as it is to you." What more does the audience need? Does it really matter what they use it for? It's rare and valuable, and they want it. Done deal; stop taking our friends and families, demons. Bang, bang.

If this was called "Loneghan and Dolarhyde" it would have made twice as much money this weekend.
 
A very enjoyable flick! It was very good to see the Kurgan again. In all honesty I did not even know he was in this film going into it. I thought he owned the scenes he was in. Ford was great, and Craig reminded me of McQueen.

I'm so happy that I got off the fence and decided to see this.
 
Larry Young said:
Not to mention they totally did explain it. "Gold is as valuable and rare to them as it is to you." What more does the audience need? Does it really matter what they use it for? It's rare and valuable, and they want it. Done deal; stop taking our friends and families, demons. Bang, bang.
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Exactly. I think this point is what made the whole thing work tonally: the aliens are just another group of bandits. They aren't bent on world domination or any other grandiose motivation common to what one expects from alien "genre" elements. (It's actually the same reason I think the comic "TURF" worked. It's a gang/turf war ... that just so happens to have two factions that aren't human participating.)

The monsters in this movie were representative of a human frailty. (All the best ones are.) The ugliness and greed of the West made manifest; there for our heroes to define themselves against, and learn something about themselves in the process.

Good stuff.
 
Larry Young said:
Not to mention they totally did explain it. "Gold is as valuable and rare to them as it is to you." What more does the audience need? Does it really matter what they use it for? It's rare and valuable, and they want it. Done deal; stop taking our friends and families, demons. Bang, bang.

If this was called "Loneghan and Dolarhyde" it would have made twice as much money this weekend.
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The aliens run Cash 4 Gold.

Loneghan and Dolarhyde sounds like a porn, or at least a couple of strippers.
 
This movie was..... alright?

It wasn't great, which is unfortunate because I love the talent involved. Well, except for three particular fellas who ended up with four other writers in the screenplay credits. This movie's story development was about as subtle as cookie cutters.

And what the devil was with the character of Doc? The guy runs a bar, has a very supportive and nice looking wife and all he does is complain. "I thought it was "our" dream". Idiot. You use that line when you're talking about the family car. And I do love it when he finally sees her again and the only thing he has to say to her is "I thought you were dead. I thought you were dead." That delivery was so phoned in it came off more as disappointed than relief.

I also liked how the aliens were just flat out dumb. They know how to track gold, have very effective means of extracting it without notice, and if anyone does see them, they have very effective ways of making those people disappear. Not to mention that nobody else would believe anyone who saw the aliens. So why the heck are they capturing us again? Oh, they're studying us for weakness. What weakness? I thought aiming their energy based weapons at us and shooting in that general direction would do the trick. What is it exactly? Never explained. I guess the obligatory ship surgeon just had to put his newly purchased blue glowing knife to good use.

Did I mention that this film has seven writers? I haven't been this dumbfounded about a movie having so many writers since I found out that 13 writers wrote Pixar's "CARS". How many writers did the Oscar winning western Unforgiven have? One. Predator? Two.

:sleep
 
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Jeyl said:
This movie was..... alright?

I also liked how the aliens were just flat out dumb. They know how to track gold, have very effective means of extracting it without notice, and if anyone does see them, they have very effective ways of making those people disappear. Not to mention that nobody else would believe anyone who saw the aliens. So why the heck are they capturing us again? Oh, they're studying us for weakness. What weakness? I thought aiming their energy based weapons at us and shooting in that general direction would do the trick. What is it exactly? Never explained. I guess the obligatory ship surgeon just had to put his newly purchased blue glowing knife to good use.
:sleep
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My guess, developing information for biological warfare. Why bother shooting us when they can just seed the atmosphere with a biological agent and wipe us out that way?
 
Ha! I thought of you and your genre/gender concerns at the end, but in a more positive way than I guess you saw the story at first blush. I loved loved loved that although people shake off the hypnosis at different rates (Jake has amnesia for most of the movie; the Colonel's son seems rebooted at the end, etc), Doc's wife... while exposed to the alien light... still didn't have her love for her husband erased. That spoke to me more of the strength of women in the flick than anything. The men are held powerless by greed, power, etc., and you can say what you want, but the two main female characters either sacrificed everything for good or didn't forget good in the face of outside influence.

Either way, thought of your concerns at the end. :)
 
I still haven't gotten to the theater to see this movie! I am going to go tomorrow night most assuredly! You guys make it sound like a really fun flick!
 
EDIT: SPOILER TAGS ARE YOUR FRIEND.

Kerr Avon said:
My guess, developing information for biological warfare. Why bother shooting us when they can just seed the atmosphere with a biological agent and wipe us out that way?
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But why bother? If they didn't go after the humans for experimenting purposes, there wouldn't have been a need for the humans to go after them, thus rendering any point in wiping us out pointless.

:sleep
*sniff marker*
:eek
And I'm also glad that Olivia Wilde was an alien who wanted to help everyone out. I thought that was cool.....but I have to ask. How was she able to get to Earth in the first place? Did she come in her own ship? If so, what happened to it? Or did she hitch a ride on an asteroid and jump off towards Earth? Did she magically teleport there? How did she know the aliens were close to that town she was working at? Oh, forget it. With Bob and Alex writing, she most likely used red matter. That crap can do anything that the plot needs it to do.

:sleep
 
Again, I thought it was great that they didn't waste the time trying to explain that in some tedious way. It just WAS.
 
Jeyl said:
Did I mention that this film has seven writers? I haven't been this dumbfounded about a movie having so many writers since I found out that 13 writers wrote Pixar's "CARS". How many writers did the Oscar winning western Unforgiven have? One. Predator? Two.

:sleep
Click to expand...

Moot point. Guess how many writers "Casablanca" had?

The total number of writers means nothing to a movie in development for a decade, if you know anything about the arbitration process. Those guys that touched it were going to get a name on it no matter what percent of their work survived. As I understand it, it was Orci/Kurtzman pretty much from scratch.
 
Also, does anyone else remember when having creative/interesting questions swirling around your head after a movie was a positive thing? The story tells what the story tells, and any other curiosities it piques are icing on the cake and allow you into a seemingly vast narrative world in a participatory way.

What's the kessel run? You decide.
 
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