A Cowboys & Aliens Recap
Wrote by JPG and Essie
. With me today is the beautiful Essie, who will help me break down what I think is actually a big disaster. So, tell me Essie, what are your first initial thoughts sitting there as the credits roll and you look at me?Essie: Hiya, everyone. For this movie, the word that comes to mind is disappointment.
JPG: Yeah, disappointment is one word that comes to mind myself, but I also was thinking "wow, this could have been so much more." I think we both agree that this was a decent movie with flaws. I also think we were both really liking it until the M. Night Shyamalan-like twist happened in the middle of the movie. Before we get into that train wreck and the rest of the movie, what things did you like about the movie? First thing that jumps off to me: design-wise and costumes, everything was pretty spot on. I mean, they have the beautiful Olivia Wilde on this thing and they made her character Ella completely plain in that dress and for most of the movie.
Essie: The make-up/wardrobe department deserves all the Oscars in the world. For one, I’m thrilled to finally see a period piece with characters who are dirty. These people live in the Old West. They bite the strings used for medical stitches, for crying out loud. They are not clean people. Everyone was appropriately dusty and dirty. Walton Goggins’ character Hunt and his jacked up, grey teeth would have sold me, but the little kid Emmett (played by Noah Ringer) and his long, filthy fingernails pushed it over the edge. It was just nice to finally see that kind of realism.
It was well-shot, very true-looking, and I enjoyed the act of watching the film, from a design standpoint.
JPG: Agreed. From a visual perspective, it was very nice. I also thought the aliens themselves were a little creepy. I totally dug how their chest would open outward and a second set of human-like hands pop out of the cavity. Very creepy and believable.
Essie: I will say that they did a great job on the aliens. They didn’t look overly CGI or cartoony. (Unlike, oh, Green Lantern. Lame.)
JPG: As we're sitting here talking, I'm finding it really hard to find anything else that was good. I think the acting was just okay. I think the story, well the lack of story, falls apart halfway through the movie and just tumbles into a collection of scenes that tries to end the movie. So, before I just jump into what I didn't like about the movie, do you have any last or parting 'good' vibes to give the movie?
BEWARE OF MOVIE REVIEW WARNING: For those of you who care, go ahead and stop reading now. We're going to get into the plot and story and let's just say for you if you were on the fence about seeing this? Wait for a rental.
Essie: I think the acting was good, actually. It was very western, very minimalist, especially in the opening. I also enjoyed how neither Harrison Ford’s Character or Daniel Craig’s Character were ‘Good’ people. I mean, Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) is a dick with a dick son, and Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) is a bandit. In this regard, it totally stuck to the Western formula of redemption story. Though I admit, it’s hard for me to watch Harrison Ford as a morally ambiguous character. He’s one of the greatest American Folk Heroes of our time.
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| The Drunken & The Bad Ass |
JPG: Ha! I thought it was hard to watch Harrison Ford because at his age and the fact he seemed drunk throughout the movie, I could not buy him as a bad guy. I just wanted to keep laughing at him. Not one time did I think "Hell, I'd hate to cross that guy". No. None. Now, Daniel Craig? Oh HELL NO. From the opening scene where he jacked up those three guys I completely bought him as a bad ass. And I was a bit hasty before. You are right. The first half of that movie did a hell of a job setting up what could be a great story. But it fell so completely flat and as hard as it is to believe, there was a jump the shark moment in the middle of the movie that ruined it and made it go completely downhill.
Essie: You’re just biased. Have you ever liked Harrison Ford?
Yes, it absolutely could have been a great story, and I’m pretty sure the jump the shark could have been completely avoided. I’ll suspend a lot of disbelief for a movie. I mean, I’m accepting Alien Pirates in the Old West already. (Gold? Really? Gold? GOLD? – hey, remember what I said about the center of the earth being composed entirely of liquid gold? MAYBE I WAS RIGHT!)
JPG: "Patience young one! Let's build up to the whole reason why these aliens are here! To begin with, of course I liked Harrison Ford. He was great in Star Wars. He was damn good in the first three Indiana Jones movies. But, yikes. You saw that performance. He looked lost half the movie. He was so unconvincing as a bad guy, I just wondered what they could have done with a legitimate bad guy.
Essie: He WAS lost. He was the only cattle farmer in a faltering New Mexico-ish frontier town. He’d been screwed over in the War of Northern Aggression, and also the Mexican American War, if I’m remembering correctly. He has been failing both his biological son and his adopted son. But you’re right, there wasn’t enough exposition to that side of his story. Which, thank goodness, since it was already a two-hour romp.
JPG: Anyway, this is not about Harrison. This is about what could have been a great western redemption flick with aliens. So, the beginning of the flick had a great western build up. People fighting. People drinking in saloons. A man playing a fiddle. A dumb ass kid shooting a deputy. It had the makings of a great western. EVEN after introducing the aliens, it was still a premise I can buy. I was still intrigued. I completely understood everybody wanting to go save their loved ones.
Essie: Yes, the plot was great to begin. It moved along well, there was a mystery, there was action, there was intrigue. It was suspenseful, with just enough detail dropped in here and there to keep you interested.
So all is progressing apace, and the first battle with the Aliens was really well done. I loved that part, and the stoic amazement Craig pulled off when the weapon first starts to do its thing. Craig and Ford played amazingly well off each other, in a very Western Man’s Man kind of way, communicating almost solely in looks and shrugs. They do their thing, the ships leave – and the ships were awesome, by the way, with the segmented, insect-like ‘legs’ they had. They were really alien-looking, not like alien-ified stealth bombers. Dolarhyde and Jake, separately, go off tracking the wounded alien. I’m digging it right on through to the riverboat.
JPG: Right, so they are hunting down the alien that was shot down and ended up at this gigantic ferry of a boat that is lying upside down in the middle of the desert. Yeah, I've got nothing. Nothing witty, nothing funny. Why was there a boat there? I'm going to assume that the aliens are anti aquatic traversing and wanted to teach whoever was on it a lesson? Anyway, they all decide to hang out in the boat because it's raining. And for pure comedic effect Doc (Sam Rockwell) decides he doesn't want to go in the boat and Dolarhyde makes a funny "Fine. Stay out here in the rain and get wet". Even with lines like that, I'm still submerged in the story. Then, it just starts to really crumble and punish us for the next 60 minutes. For instance, why did the alien go on the boat? He had to know the humans were on it. He was injured. He was already on the run and further along than the humans. Did he turn around to look for them even though he was injured and trying to get back to the mother ship? Seriously, I don't get any of that other than for the big exposure.
Essie: But it was a good exposure. The scene with Dolarhyde and Emmitt did a nice job of humanizing Ford’s character- he was a great (period appropriate) father figure to Emmitt, but still a jackass to Mexican-Indian dude, Nat Colorado (Adam Beach). (Which will come up later, and I’ll get to that then.) The alien was totally creepy. The reveal of alien anatomy was great, and showed us what we needed to know without seeming heavy-handed.
And then, after a torrential rain storm, the kind that lasts ALL NIGHT – which, I mean, we get here in Ohio, but I don’t know how common 12 hour deluges are in New Mexico – they go off, everything is still dusty, and discover the alien has done runt off, into a canyon. A DRY, DUSTY CANYON. I know, I KNOW this is nit-picking, but canyons are formed by water. In the desert, after an all-night rain storm, I’m pretty sure the canyon would have, at the very least, had a stream running through it.
And then we go off the rails like crazycakes.
JPG: Crazy cakes is exactly how to explain it. So, we just spent an hour building up a plot/story. For some odd reason, aliens are kidnapping people. We've met a ton of characters who are thrown together because they want to rescue loved ones. Jake Lonergan is the only character that we've actually had any build up of something somewhat original with everybody else being stereotypical archetypes. We've chased an alien to a boat in the desert, we've then chased the alien to a valley and then we meet Jake Lonergan's old gang that he used to steal money. Then the gang chases after Jake and the rest into the sunny desert, THEN aliens decide to get in on this gang bang! Craig shows some great gymnastic agility by swinging under a horse's head and shooting a ship, after which the ship turns around, captures Ella and then the most amazing thing ever happens! A chase scene with a horse... catching an alien technology-enhanced space craft. *Ahem* I repeat, a horse catches a spacecraft. Wow... That's a mouthful!
Essie: Right, which, ok, even that I can buy. The ship is wounded, horses are fast, it’s cowboys and aliens. I’m ok with this. I’m ok with Jake jumping onto the flying ship, and cutting Ella loose, both of them knowing how to swim – trust me, this would not have been the case for 95% of Wild Westerners – surviving the fall from a flying spaceship into the river, and making it to shore.
In fact, this brings up my favorite scene in the movie. They get to shore, they’ve recovered their breath, and Jake looks at Ella and says, with beautifully understated awe, “We just flew.” It was a really beautiful line, and I was thrilled to hear it. Not a lot was made of the seriously advanced tech these aliens have brought to town, and I guess when you’re trying to survive, you can’t really marvel at the wonders of your enemy’s advancements. But flying. That’s something no one else you’re ever met has done.
Even if you had to get lassoed by an alien to do it.
JPG: That was a beautiful line. I really did like that scene too. I really appreciated the monster in the closet scare technique used. I didn't roll my eyes and wasn’t disappointed. It was good. But, you do have to agree, that once the alien pops up and takes out Wilde and her eventual death five minutes later starts the roller coaster of cheesy sci fi that kind of ruins the rest of the movie.
Essie: Absolutely. Well. The injury and reaction, and even the carrying her back to the remainder of the scouting party – which could have been cheesy and overdone – was perfectly played. But, of course, Ella dies of her injuries. And the denial of said death is compounded by the arrival of a band of stinkin injuns.
Our players are captured and dragged back to the Indian camp. Ford’s got some great lines through the following events, but that’s lost in the fact that the Natives throw Ella’s dead body into a fire, get ready to kill the White Men, and then, just in time, we hit trippy town.
Ella’s naked body appears, ethereal, from within the flames. Her ghostly figure shift and solidifies, and she emerges, nekkid as the day she was born, from the pyre. And amid the stunned silence, she gives us the Old West Equivalent of, “Oh yeah, I can totally do that. I didn’t want to get your hopes up, because, well, I’m not human, but it’s cool. What?”
What? Wait, WHAT? No, seriously, look. I can get with a lot of stuff. I can buy everything that’s happened so far. But at this point, a dead chick rising from the fire and suddenly, with no foreshadowing or warning or special make-up effects tells us THIS WHOLE TIME SHE’S AN ALIEN TOO? AND SHE CAN REGENERATE HER DEAD HUMAN BODY? AND THAT’S THE LAST WE HEAR OF IT?
What the hell kind of mind trick is this crap?
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| A Resurrection that Jesus would be proud of! |
JPG: EXACTLY! And, I may be a little slow, but she dies right? And then doesn't she die again at the end of the movie, but for good? Why can't she come back to life that second time? Is there some galactic law that we don't know about that prevents you from coming back to life a second time? Anyway, we'll get to that in due time. So, she comes back, I've thrown my hands up in the air, I stare bewildered at you and from this point on, I've given up on enjoying the movie and I'm now beginning to watch with a critical eye.
So, she goes on to tell her story. She convinces everybody that she can help destroy them but she needs to know where they are. She says Craig knows where they are but he says he doesn't remember. So, the injuns give him some laced fire water and a humming bird pokes him in the head hard enough to remember.
Essie: Right. We’ve gone from awesome Western, to some kind of Disney flick where birds lead you to the ultimate Truth. I mean, what?
Thankfully, the rest of the movie doesn’t really need much of a critical view. They find, through Jake's magic bird memory, where the alien base is located, they come up with a plan to infiltrate and get their people out, and oh yeah, Dolarhyde's field hand/adopted son, who Dolarhyde took in after he was orphaned in the Mexican American War – which lead me to believe he was, you know, Mexican, is either Apache or fluent in Apache or something. And, even though Dolarhydes been nothing but a bigot jerk to this guy for the whole movie, this is the guy who convinces the rest of the tribe to join in on the raid, and he eventually sacrifices himself to save his father figure from the really actually quite alien aliens.
Also, apparently aliens want revenge when you slice up their faces with a laser scalpel.
JPG: Haha, right. That was actually kind of cool. The way the alien sadistically smiled at Jake. As if it was going to get sweet, sweet revenge on him. But, alas it did not happen. So, they end up infiltrating the mother ship, one man with one weapon killing ALL THE ALIENS WITH ALL THE WEAPONS ends up saving all the major captives, but his whore of a girlfriend. Ella decides to sacrifice herself and blow up the ship with one of those alien wrist guns and all is well that ends well.
Colonel Dolarhyde because a beloved citizen. The town is booming because they get the left over gold from the aliens (and why did they need the gold? Oh, just one of those plot points they decided to never really explain). And Jake Lonergan gets to ride off into the sunset. Did I miss anything?
Essie: Nope, that about sums it up. I just can’t get over the whole resurrection, I’m an alien thing. It really did ruin the movie for me. I give it a 3.5. Some good lines, beautiful make-up/wardrobe, likable enough, but definitely not something I’d recommend paying theater prices for. Dollar theater if you want the movie-going experience, rental if you’re good with waiting.
JPG: Agreed. I do drop the score down to just a 3, but overall it was an OK flick that had a lot going for it but ultimately fell apart at the resurrection scene. It completely took me out of the moment and I just kind of stopped caring.
Anyway, thanks for tagging along for the ride, Essie. It's been a blast doing this with you. I can't wait until our next movie recap Final Destination 5. I'm sure we'll have very varying opinions on that one!
Essie: Whee!
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