Running Time: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Jon Favreau
Quick Impressions:
I went into this movie with no expectations. To be more honest, I expected to write a bad review of a cinematic train wreck. I’ve long been suspicious of Cowboys and Aliens because of its much touted star power and insane marketing push. I’ve gone to the movies a lot this summer, and I’m pretty sure the only time I didn’t see a First Look segment about or preview for Cowboys and Aliens was before Winnie the Pooh. (And even then, the first thing my two-year-old announced when we got home from the decorated theater was that she wanted to see the movie about “aliens and those cowboys.”)
Also, I’m not a big fan of westerns or of Daniel Craig, and I lost interest in the project when I heard that he’d be replacing Robert Downey, Jr. as the lead. Still, back in the days when the west was young, I liked Harrison Ford. More recently, I liked Iron Man. I even liked Iron Man 2, so I was willing to give director Jon Favreau a chance.
To my complete shock, I loved the movie. From the first scene, the story seemed compelling, and in the scenes that followed, we met a cast of irresistibly strong and intriguing characters. I’ve heard the movie described as a genre mash-up (not surprisingly, given its title). But as I watched it, I thought the genre was pretty clear—western. This really is not much like a science fiction movie at all. It’s just a western with a surprising and mysterious villain.
If another genre does influence the action, surely it’s not sci-fi but horror. As the movie progressed, it seemed increasingly like a nightmare to me. But it was a very pleasant nightmare, one I very much enjoyed watching.
The Good and The Great:
For the first time this summer, I noticed the score of the movie, and I liked Harry Gregson-Williams’s score a lot. Next I noticed the scenery. (It was hard not to notice. There wasn’t much dialogue for quite a while.) I liked the look of the scenery, too. And then when Lonergan arrived in town, I was hooked. I found the townspeople fascinating from the moment Percy Dolarhyde began aimlessly shooting up the place. What a wonderful part for Paul Dano, so well and convincingly played!
And I really cared about the townspeople, particularly Sam Rockwell’s saloon keeper, Doc, and his (apparent) wife, Maria. The sheriff surprised me by appearing on the scene as a strong man of the law in what had seemed to be a lawless town. Keith Carradine’s amazingly charismatic sheriff convinced me that an exciting showdown with Dolarhyde was coming (and that, given the sense of nervous anticipation for Dolarhyde’s arrival, he must be the character played by Harrison Ford.)
By this time, I was eagerly leaning forward, totally hooked. I would have been satisfied to watch the resolution of this deliciously set up conflict among the cowboys even if the aliens had failed to show up.
Then Olivia Wilde showed up seeming entirely too self-confident and assertive for a woman on her own in the Old West. She seemed to know something about Lonergan. I wanted to learn more about her.
The set-up of the movie was beyond compelling. But maybe there will be no follow through, I thought. Maybe the aliens will show up, and the entire thing will just unravel and fall apart.
But that didn’t happen. The story remained perfectly coherent, right to the end.
Granted, in order to enjoy Cowboys and Aliens, you have to take the movie on its own terms. Despite the campy title, this movie isn’t a joke. The men on the trail, riding in pursuit of their loved ones take their quest just as seriously as anyone in a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood western. If you want to consider yourself cynically above their somber stoicism, then by all means make fun of the movie—but you’ll enjoy it more if you don’t.
Best Joke:
This joke was on me. I recognized the names of screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman when they flashed on the screen during the opening credits, but I couldn’t place them. All through the movie, I kept waiting for the plot to break down into unintelligible nonsense or meaningless action that didn’t quite connect. But that never happened. I left the theater thinking, That was a very coherent, character-driven script, pretty well written, overall. Certainly, Cowboys and Aliens had a much better script than the most recent Transformers movie, or worse, that garbled mess, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Then I get home and look up the writers’ names only to discover that they had previously penned guess what movie? That’s right, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
Best Action Sequence:
Some of the best action in the movie has nothing to do with the aliens. Braceleted drifter Jake Lonergan exhibits such amazing hand-to-hand combat skills that he gives Jason Bourne a run for his money as cinematic history’s most lethal amnesiac protagonist. Surely he was trained in space, I thought when I first saw his highly effective, lightning quick moves.
There’s plenty of hand-to-hand, rifle-to-rifle, six-shooter-to-six-shooter combat. The movie also delivers fast-paced battles on horseback and even a good old fashioned Apache ambush. But the best action sequences do involve the aliens, of course.
The final showdown delivers plenty of nail-bitingly intense moments, but I personally find the sequence hinted at in previews, when the aliens first fly over the town, the most moving action sequence of the movie, mainly because it isn’t satisfying and isn’t meant to be. It introduces another layer of mystery and difficulty to the already complex situation.
Best Scene:
When the posse of trackers takes refuge from the rain for the night, the sheriff’s grandson hungrily and anxiously watches Harrison Ford’s Dolarhyde use a knife to pare and eat an apple. Especially because of the way Dolarhyde has just interacted with Nat Colorado, we really don’t know what his reaction to the boy will be. At this point, the audience is still trying to figure out Dolarhyde. Largely because he’s played by Harrison Ford, we suspect that underneath his gruff, menacing, sometimes misanthropic exterior, he’s actually a good man, trying to do what’s right. But we’re not completely sure.
Moments later, as the boy drops his knife when confronted by a mysterious assailant, we face the same situation again. At that point, we suspect that the assailant intends harm toward the boy, but we are not completely sure, and the assailant’s slow approach makes us doubly unsure.
I thought the juxtaposition of these two similar moments was brilliant. The story is still only beginning, and we, the audience, haven’t yet learned to discern our allies from our enemies with confidence. One of the movie’s central concerns is the redrawing of alliances in the face of a broader worldview, and I thought this series of interactions helped to put the audience temporarily in a situation as disorienting as the one the characters undergo as the film progresses.
Best Surprise:
Almost every surprise in the movie revolves around one of two characters. Of course, one of those characters is Jake Lonergan, and the mystery that surrounds him is the driving force of the movie’s plot.
The other character who brings about surprises surprised me chiefly because of how long the film managed to delay the surprise. Initially, I felt I had sized up this character accurately—and in fact, I had—but the movie made me wait so long before confirming my assumptions that I began to doubt my intuition. If I say any more, I’ll spoil the surprise.
Best Scene Visually:
Not surprisingly, some of the most memorable scenes in the movie involve the aliens, but to discuss these in any detail does spoil certain surprises in the plot. In perfect honesty, however, many of the scenes that rely on no CGI are just as stunning visually. The background landscape in several scenes is simply breathtaking, and I think the scene in which Lonergan goes after Ella, and both of them end up falling into the river is very visually rewarding. Some people might prefer some scenes in the Apache camp, but I thought some of those were a bit over-the-top.
The Performances:
As far as I’m concerned, this was a return to form by Harrison Ford, playing grizzled cattle rancher and former Civil War General Dolarhyde. At moments, he carried the surly, grizzled Westerner a bit too far and almost veered into Yosemite Sam territory, but I like Yosemite Sam, too, and Ford’s underplayed moments made up for these over-the-top lapses. As I watched, I thought, Why hasn’t Harrison Ford chosen more movies like this? For too long, Ford has struggled to remain the undisputed leading man, getting the girl, no matter how bland his role and surroundings. He needs to take more parts like this. Cowboys and Aliens is the kind of movie Harrison Ford should be making.
I was delighted to see Paul Dano as Percy Dolarhyde, a role a bit different from those he’s previously played that allowed him to show some range. I thought he did a magnificent job as an unlikable character who laid the groundwork for Keith Carradine’s impressive entrance as Sheriff John Taggart. I loved both characters and thought the actors playing them were doing marvelous work.
I’m not ordinarily a fan of Daniel Craig, though I’ll acknowledge that he’s a good actor. You do not have to like Daniel Craig to enjoy this movie, however, and as Jake Lonergan, the stoic, physically gifted amnesiac, Craig is very convincing.
Olivia Wilde is fantastic as Ella Swenson, exuding a focused confidence unusual in women of that era.
Sam Rockwell is a talented actor, but I normally don’t like the characters he plays. Doc was a bit more palatable than usual, most interesting in his interactions with his wife and Clancy Brown’s rather likeable Meacham. When the movie allowed Doc the shining moment it had led us to anticipate, people clapped (but not many).
I loved Adam Beach as Nat Colorado, and thought that the depth of his feeling for Dolarhyde might have seemed laughable or less significant in the hands of a less capable actor.
I found Ana de la Reguera very engaging as Doc’s wife Maria and wondered who she was. She didn’t have a large part in the movie (though her character was certainly significant), but when she was onscreen, she definitely made an impression as did Noah Ringer (unfortunately–for him, I mean–cast as Aang in The Last Airbender) as Emmett Taggart, the sheriff’s soulful eyed grandson.
The Negatives:
I liked this movie a lot, but I can guess why some people might not. I’m not a big fan of action scenes that don’t advance the plot or develop the characters, and this movie didn’t have many (really any) of those. People buying tickets to a summer blockbuster called Cowboys and Aliens might expect a bit more bang for their buck–by which I mean explosions, laser fights, aerial collisions, and the like.
I can also imagine that the movie might bore some people. I found the absence of frenzy in the pacing charmingly refreshing in a summer full of 3D explosions of super-heroic proportions. But the movie does seem suitable for an older audience, perhaps ideally an audience that first saw Harrison Ford in American Graffiti, remembers not only the time before MTV stopped showing music videos, but also the time before it started, and considers 3D, on the whole, an expensive gimmick designed to rip off the American movie goer. People who look at haggard, grizzled, General Dolarhyde and say to themselves, “Now there’s a young man who understands how the world really is,” will almost definitely like this movie.
Cowboys and Aliens really isn’t for children (so my two-year-old will just have to wait) and might honestly not be fast-paced or violent enough for most teenagers. (Also despite an all-too-brief moment in a nearly see-through top, we don’t clearly see Olivia Wilde nude or behaving in a sexual way, which is bound to be a crushing disappointment to a certain hopeful demographic.)
Another problem with the movie is that its relentless marketing push almost certainly created some unrealistically high expectations in fans. The story does make sense. The mystery of Jake is solved, and everything is resolved in a way that actually does follow reasonably logically. But this might not seem like enough to some people. In general, I think that people tend to want too much from movies, looking to fill a void that popular cinema isn’t capable of satisfying. To those expecting to find something life-altering in a summer blockbuster, I can only suggest attending the premiere of a movie starring Tom Cruise and finding a way to speak to him privately afterwards.
This movie isn’t meant to change your life. There’s plenty of meaning to be found in Cowboys and Aliens, but most of it comes from the human relationships, not some extra-terrestrial source. Sure, the answer to Jake’s mystery could have been something much, much cooler and more complex than what it turned out to be. Of course, the movie could have been better. But (take it from a cynic), it also could have been much, much worse.
I’m just happy that it provided a coherent story, interesting characters, and a decent sense of closure.
Some of the more emotional moments may not resonate with everyone. By the end, the movie had completely won me over. I was on its side. But even I thought the sentimental scenes between General Dolarhyde and his worthy son, the moment that the Doc finally followed through with what we’ve been expecting, the instant when the boy finally became a man—these scenes all hovered on the brink of hokey. One second you thought, Brilliant! The next you worried, Too far?
And yes (I’m not reading other reviews, but surely I can’t be the only person who thinks this) the ending is a bit reminiscent of the most recent Indiana Jones movie, but I really think the best way to proceed is just to be happy that Shia LaBeouf doesn’t swing by on a vine and ruin the moment. And the scene in which Harrison Ford comes to Daniel Craig’s rescue inside the ship—as far as I’m concerned, in that moment, the movie got a little too carried away for its own good. But some people might like it.
The one real flaw with the premise was that the citizens of the cleverly named Absolution were not nearly freaked out enough by the arrival of the aliens. Yes I realize that they’re cowboys, that they do what they must and don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves. But still. Come on. Aliens.
When they spent the night in their very unlikely refuge from the rain, only the Doc seemed to find that course of action objectionably peculiar—and he’s the one who let some whiny little idiot throw his glasses on the ground, so we all know that he freaks out too easily. And even he didn’t freak out nearly enough.
In fairness, though, as I thought about that, I began to suspect that it was not so much an error as a tonal choice. As I said before, the movie unfolds like a nightmare. In a nightmare, we go from place to place, from objective to objective because we must, because we are compelled. It all makes sense within the confines of the dream.
Overall:
I liked Cowboys and Aliens. I didn’t expect to like it, but I did. In fact, I thought it was one of the better movies I’ve seen this summer, maybe because it actually managed to be different from most of what is currently playing in theaters. It was far from a perfect movie, but it was even farther from the train wreck I was expecting. Even if the premise perhaps promised more than the movie could deliver, the film was intriguing, extremely well-acted, and even to someone who doesn’t particularly like Westerns, at all moments entertaining. I’d see it again.