Cowboys & Aliens

I was really excited to see this, even despite the strange and incomprehensible story. I thought that nothing can be more surprising than a fight between the 19th century cowboys and aliens who decide to visit an arid town in the middle of the American prairie. Let’s face it, it was all a load of hogwash, but I must admit that I had fun. The actors were cool. Their performances were standard. Harrison Ford’s might have been a bit better. He’ll probably always be charismatic. In any case, the movie’s main currency were special effects – and the authors really put a lot of work into those. It’s true that the story starts getting insane halfway through, but I didn’t really mind that much. I enjoyed it and I think that at the cinema, this experience would’ve been on a whole new level. (11/26/2012)

Me and Craig have one thing in common, we both look pretty dumb in hats. But he’s a bit tougher than I am, so he can get away with wearing them in public. C&A is a fairly simple piece of idiocy that combines the most mundane from the world of westerns and sci-fi, well there’s a couple of interesting ideas (just what do those aliens want here), but you would expect that with such a horde of screenwriters (and not bad ones at that) they would come up with something really good. And Favreau usually does a much better job, saving the show with some playfulness, a certain detachment and Downey Jr., but he this time didn’t smuggle any of this into the movie. The aliens hide for too long and so we don’t have much of a chance to enjoy them in the first, cowboy-like, more tedious half. On the other hand, they do look great (and they are the only thing that Uncle Spielberg’s fatherly hand added), and maybe there is more to learn about them in the documentaries on the DVD. Gregson’s music works pretty well. The only thing I can give full marks to is the casting, Harrison is trying not to fall off the Jones comeback bandwagon and he does very well. And Olivia... oh my, Olivia, if you don’t drown in her delightful eyes, then her almost see-through dress will definitely get you. And at the end she has her hair in a ponytail... (08/25/2011)

I don't quite know if there's a more tragic screenplay that sometimes becomes unnecessarily entangled in its simple stupidity, or (again) a desperately flimsy Jon Favreau, who created something resembling a television production without a single ballbusting scene, in which several megastars have accidentally become involved. Although the introduction looks quite hopeful, the rest of the film is full of endless desperate awkwardness, which is ridiculous but in no way entertaining. I wonder what the crew spent the $160 million on. Probably fiery water and windy women. You can see it in Cowboys and Aliens - and this could and should have been really good. But the film would have had to be made by someone who at least has the general ability to drop genre clichés and not just mechanically imitate them (and badly!). (08/10/2011)

The problem lies not in the fact that the whole screenplay consists only of the three words in the title, nor in the unjustifiably overdone footage (which can be said at least for the fifteen minute extended version), but in Favreau himself. He lacks a sense of atmosphere and action, and the ability to create them. Which, in a film where there is nothing but atmosphere and action, is a bit of a nuisance. It's also a shame that the movie takes itself so deadly seriously, and that this pose only fits during the stylish introduction. (02/11/2012)

Absolute crap, which was to be expected based on its name. Fortunately, it's quite entertaining and it looks good, and the few one-liners were worth it. The Indians shooting arrows at the space monsters with their bows is definitely the craziest thing that you can see in cinemas this summer, except for maybe The Smurfs. Perfectly corny. But in the end there are plenty of things that aren’t logical, Olivia Wilde is as annoying as the Mexican child, and it is a great pity that the tough Ford turns soft in the last third. Undemanding fun? Undoubtedly. (08/11/2011)