04 August 2011

At the movies: Cowboys & Aliens.


There's a deadpan goofiness to this film that resonated with me (and apparently very few others- people have been lining up to dump Hatorade on this film like it was the Elm Street remake). It's as High Concept a title as you can get, and you can practically feel the dozens of executives, focus groups, Mountain Dew-addled nine year-olds, and teams of Harrison Ford's writers working things over into movie Play-Doh.

But there's something here that's distinctly enjoyable, even when it's completely ridiculous. Jon Favreau is a director I will follow anywhere (seriously, Made is one of the outstanding directorial debuts of the ages), and you can tell he's ecstatic to be making a Western. That there's a giant spacecraft/complex and alien fighters thrown in the mix is just gravy.

The plot is there just to get in the way of the story, and awesome character actors will periodically show up to liven the proceedings- seriously, Walton Goggins is on his way to becoming the Harry Dean Stanton of the new millennium (once HDS dies, though, and he's still going strong for a bit).

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are exactly what you'd expect, and Sam Rockwell is just awesome, as always (except for The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy).

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