Cowboys & Aliens
                             
Director: Jon Favreau
Year: 2011
Rating: 6.0
It's not hard to guess what the pitch was to the money men. This film is going to have cowboys, Indians and aliens - and the aliens are like The Predator and we also have James Bond and Indiana Jones. We have all the market segments covered. It is a sure thing. And in fact, the film made $180 million at the box office but managed to lose a boatload. A certified bomb. But it is hard to figure out where the money went. There are no elaborate sets with much of it taking place out in God's country or in a ramshackle town. And CGI for the aliens and their spaceship. Damn, how much was Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig being paid? But from an audience perspective, who cares. It wasn't my money and as much of a rabbit stew as this is, it is fairly entertaining.  A lot happens in the two-hour running time. I am surprised I never saw this before - one of those films that has been on the tip of my tongue for years but never quite felt like it. No brain cells killed as far as I know and it is always great seeing Harrison Ford. Too bad they couldn't bring that other Bond fellow on board as well.

 

Jake (Craig) finds himself out in the desert with no memory and a weird intricate bracelet around his wrist that he can't take off. He wanders into town only to find that he is a wanted man for murder and about everything else except littering and the sheriff (Keith Carradine) tosses him into a cell. Next to the loathsome son (Paul Dano) of the big landowner of the county, Woodrow (Ford). Woodrow is like all large landowners in Westerns - a mean bastard who expects to always get his way. A nice little traditional Western so far. And then the aliens arrive in these slim swift aircrafts in which they go fishing for people and yank them up. Suddenly the bracelet comes alive and Jake is able to shoot one of them down. He still has no memory of anything.  

 

Sure enough, they form a posse and go after the creature that escaped from the craft. When they later come face to face with it, it has an uncanny resemblance to the Predator with ferocious jaws and hands that can come out of its mouth. I wouldn't even want an ex-girlfriend to date this thing. But this posse is just getting started. A mysterious woman with aqua eyes has been following Jake but she won't say why. They run into Jake's old gang who want to kill him because he ran out with their gold. Next, they run into a tribe of Cherokees who want to cook them - but to save mankind they all band together to fight the aliens. And why shouldn't there have been aliens in the 1800's? It's not like they weren't around before the 50s - after it is all finished in the film, the government arrives and takes away all the evidence, puts everyone involved in a prison and hushes up the whole thing. It has been a secret all these years. Directed by Jon Favreau who knows how to make a fun film.