Cowboys & Aliens

I am afraid that the length and content of the script did not exceed the title of the film, which promised a great adventure, and in combination with the talented creative team, ideal popcorn entertainment. The first approximately 15 minutes are divine, Craig is the ultimate tough guy, the canvas shirts smell of sweat, and everyone is carrying their guns low. Then Ford enters the scene, showcasing the most ridiculous toughness in the history of the Wild West, and everything is crowned by an absolutely asexual outfit à la Olivia Wilde's nightgown. The plot takes place in a total of 3 larger locations (with the majority of them being the wasteland of New Mexico), a larger amount of ILM fantasizing, so you can also search for it under a microscope, which raises the question: where did the 163 million from the budget go? From the beginning of the second third, it's perpetually echoing boredom, which this commercial failure fully deserves. The worst blockbuster from approximately 2-3 years ago. (01/27/2012)

An “amazing” idea that managed to spoil the fourth Indiana Jones in a few seconds, stretched out into two hours. Initially, it looks good: Daniel Craig’s tough cowboy is cool, the western setting turned out well, the first contact with extraterrestrials is magical, the humor spot on, the visual effects perfect, and the aliens look much more impressive than the mole-like thing from Super 8. Starting with the scene of crawling out of a fire, however, things go downhill, and the subsequent deluge of cliché-ridden fast-brewing relationships between the characters and illogical moments in the action scenes just seals the movie’s sad fate. The screenwriters seemed to think that the more they go wild, the more the audience would enjoy it… Cowboys and Indians from the American Prairies, unite in an idealistic world against the alien Nazis who think of you as insects and want to steal your gold! - Bullshit. (09/14/2011)

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)

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)

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)