COWBOYS AND ALIENS (2011)
For some reason, I had heard a lot of bad stuff about this film. A good many of the people that I follow on Twitter said they didn't love it. It didn't do as well as expected at the box office (just barely beating out The Smurfs that weekend) and it didn't do well on RottenTomatoes.com (a whopping 45%).
All the same, I found it to be quite fun and exciting. It had a few missteps and a bit of wonkyness because of the genre blending, but overall a good enough story to warrant a view.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
You know what? I really did like this movie. You know why? Because Westerns are cool.
 |
| Isn't this cool?!! |
Anyway, the film takes the inherent coolness of the Western and adds a fantastical element - aliens. This is what was so mind-blowing from the original graphic novel, the fact that they blended the Western and Sci-Fi genre. This had been thought of, but never done in such a large scale.
Read the Prologue to the Graphic Novel of Cowboys and Aliens here.That being said, it may have been the reason for such confusion in the audience. The goals of a Western are far different from the goals of Sci-Fi. They have the same technicality and the same story-telling techniques, but they share differing trains of thought and different perspectives. I will admit though, the reaction from the characters to the alien technology was amazing. That was what I was hoping for throughout the whole film - 19th Century rubes reacting to electricity and technology.
Now here is where the film suffered - too many characters and not enough sympathy for the characters. Every time a new character was brought in I though "Oh great, now they're going to waste time explaining this guy." Even though Daniel Craig played the mysterious man who wakes in the desert with temporary amnesia, they thought it a good idea to start focusing on people like Harrison Ford's Colonel Dolarhyde (appropriate name, no?) or his son, or the mysterious alien woman, or the barkeep and his wife, or the sheriff and his grandson, or the Native American worker, or the... you get the idea.
The problem with not generating sympathy stems from the fact that none of these characters warrant that sympathy. In most gritty Western dramas you can have a group of despicable characters that choose to do no good, and the unsympathetic becomes sympathetic because there is one guy who excels beyond it and turns over a leaf of good. We usually find out who it is right at the beginning of the film. Other Westerns have despicable characters throughout, but they are all taught a lesson (check out The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, you will be glad you did.) But in a blockbuster Sci-Fi/Western you will need to generate some heart right away or the audience is going to distrust the entire film.
Our hero Jake Lonergan (I presume he's the hero) is nothing but a dirty lowdown thief. Ya he may not remember that, and he does receive redemption in the end, but right off the bat we want to love him and we don't. He kills three men brutally right away for no reason! They didn't deserve that! Sure they had scalps on their horses and they were acting a bit rough with him, and maybe they did deserve it because of what they had done up to that point, but we don't see that in the film and we need a better reason for him to murder them and steal their clothes.
Colonel Dolarhyde isn't any better. We hate him immediately because of his son Percy (played by the amazing Paul Dano). We are supposed to hate Percy because he's a whiny piece of work, but because of the way the town fears Dolarhyde we automatically believe him to be the villain.
The Native Americans are the closest to gathering my sympathy as well as the young boy. The problem is - we don't get to know them at all. The Native Americans speak through an interpreter and act out of fear, the young boy doesn't say anything the whole movie and shows nothing but fear. We don't know them!
And of course - the aliens. They are completely out of the question. We hate them. Why? Because they came here to take over and steal our gold (Gold? Seriously? They want gold?!) They maliciously kidnapped our kin and forced weird experiments on them. Also they are ugly and slimy.
On a side note - why do all the aliens look the same nowadays? Can't we come up with any better looking or different styled alien creatures? I swear the only difference between them are where the arms and eyes are placed. Everything else is the same - a computer generated baddie with claws and weird bug eyes. Where are my giant ants?! Where are my humanoids? Where are my Predators with dreadlocks or my Aliens with crazy heads and mouths within mouths? Why are they all looking the same now?Anyway, as much as I'm slamming the characters and other aspects of this film, I was truly engaged throughout and loved the production design and cool vibe. I hope they don't stop making original stories like this and I really hope they don't stop genre-blending because frankly, it's neat.
Did you see the movie?:
What are your thoughts? What did you think? Is there anything you hated/loved about the film?
1 comments:
I did see the movie and I was pleasantly surprised because I too had heard so many bad things about it. I was impressed. However, I did find it to be slow in parts and after reading your blog I realized that it probably feels slow because I wasn't really connected to some of the characters. I just checked out at times since I wasn't sure I cared about the characters. Overall though it was good and I realized maybe I need to give Westerns a second chance. Sci-fi is still gross because aliens are always slimy.
Post a Comment