Cowboys and Aliens Review: goldgoldgoldgoldgold

By Spence Blazak

There is an old story that says a reporter once asked Alfred Hitchcock why his movies were all so good. Even his lesser works were on a completely different level than most of the movies coming out at the time. He said that it was because he took into account two things: everything must have a purpose, and he was aware of "refrigerator logic". He defined the self-made term as "When you wake up in the middle of the night and realize that something in the movie you saw that day didn't make any sense." Essentially, a bad plot hole. One of the best examples is in the movie Memento. If Leonard can't remember anything from after the point he was hit with the mirror, then how does he remember that he the extreme short term memory loss disease? Still an almost perfect movie, but ya know.....

Some movies aren't as lucky to get off the hook for having things that don't make sense, specifically Cowboys and Aliens. Almost none of the logic checks out, and I'm not talking about the fact that there are aliens. And its just...not good. At all. Even its schlock value can't save it. You know a movie is a real dud when I, the world's biggest proponent of unintentional comedy, think that its just too bad.

Basically, if you've seen the trailer, then you've seen the first 25 minutes of the movie. Stranger wakes up in New Mexico without any memories and an alien bracelet on his hand, gets arrested in town, and then saves the town from an alien space ship that is abducting the townsfolk. He then goes with a slew of characters to hunt down the alien overlords, and get everyone's family back .

I knew this was in trouble during the opening credits. Despite having names like Spielberg, Howard, Grazer, and Favreau attached, the fact that it had 4 different screenwriters is a deal breaker for most movies. Imagine going on a date with that really hot girl from Latin class whom you always ask for a pen, even though you have one that works perfectly well. She is cute. She has a donk. She has a nice personality. She mentions she is a serial killer. She has angelic dimples above her perfectly painted lips. Her eyes look like the foamy waters of the Coral Sea. Lastly, she has a GREAT sense of humor. A real "Babe-raham Lincoln" right? No matter how many good things something has going for it, one pesky little problem can botch the whole thing. If one or two writers can't make something good, why would 4 of them be able to? Always remember that.

Cowboys biggest problem is that it tries to be too many things at once, and winds up being none of them. It wants to be taken seriously, but the material is too absurd for it to happen, so tonal inconsistencies pop up like Whack-a-moles at a Chuck-E-Cheese. It also wants to be an homage to old Westerns, but just falls on its face miserably. Favreau recreates a few famous shots from The Searchers and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in the first few minutes, then just gives up. By making his shots cut so short and smooshed together, it completely ruins the Western mystique. And the action aspect of it is just sad. There is no better word to describe it. Daniel Craig's fight scenes are good, and then they introduce the aliens....some of the worst use of aliens since Santa Clause vs. The Martians. Nothing actually happens. I know it sounds weird, but its true. The aliens just kind of...roll over and die towards the end. Not one particularly cool thing happens during the fights, which wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't an action movie, but alas, it is.

Favreau struggles with nearly every aspect of the movie except with the performances. He gets a bad ass showing from Daniel Craig, and a hilarious "I'm playing myself" performance from Harrison Ford. Olivia Wilde (the hot girl from Tron and House) does a solid job playing the token woman in the alien hunting posse. She pulls off her job of being hot very, very well. Honestly? Its all she needed to do with the part they gave her.

The movie's crowning achievement comes from the bit part actors. Some of the best schlocky acting I've seen all summer. Notably, a drunk guy at the beginning who stumbles around a group of Harrison Ford's cattle, before they explode. He bashes the Ford and the cattle, and his voice is so funny that my eyes watered. Even more notably, Clancy Brown as the ole preacher man. Thats right. The man behind the voice of Mr. Krabs. Literally every time he opened his mouth I was howling with laughter. He is rounding out his career by having possibly the most diverse resumé ever: Flubber, this, and The Shawshank Redemption.

Finally, I must say that the best schlocky part of the movie is the aliens' reason for attacking: they want our gold. The only dialogue addressing it is "Its as valuable to them as it is to us." AND THEN IT IS NEVER ADDRESSED AGAIN. Thats refrigerator logic, my dear readers. Several minutes after the line was uttered, my friend Dave Pic said ".......but why in the blue hell would an ALIEN need GOLD?!?!?!?!?!?!" I think that summed up the movie better than this whole review.

With 4 stars being Unforgiven or True Grit (2010) and 1 star being Wild Wild West or Alien: Resurrection I'll reluctantly toss this a 2.25 stars. Solely because the gold thing and Mr. Krabs were so hysterical.