Movie Review: Cowboys and Aliens

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GulfCoast Presbyterian

Puritan Board Senior
The premise struck me as interesting: Cowboys vs. Aliens.

I assumed that it would be more of a comedy, as if it were serious, authentic cowboys such as John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford and James Arness would have punked out those evil space critters in about 3 minutes and we would have no need for a 2 hour movie. Alas, the movie took itself WAY too seriously.

Think "b-movie spaghetti western meets b-movie sci-fi flick" and you get the gist of this show. Bad aliens want to steal the Earth's gold, to kidnap Earth's people and experiment/eat them, and the local townspeople get sick of it once the pretty women start getting abducted, band together with the indians and local outlaws, and Mr. James Bond, who happens to have escaped from the space critters with one of thier wrist mounted ray guns (but has no memory).

Harrison Ford tries to play a bad guy, and cannot quite pull it off (mandatory "redemption" theme here). The standout actor is the dog (known as "dog"), who shows up in the first scene, keeps showing up no matter how many times you think that he has become alien-chow, saves the little boy from the aliens, warns everyone all the time, and has the final line in the film ("whine, whine, whine" as Bond saddles up). The dog has an awesome smirk in the whole movie, as if to say "I cannot believe a great canine actor like myself has to keep a straight face in this flick!"

Thoughout the movie, every single person in the place would say, as soon as an alien was finally killed against great odds "DUDE: CUT HIS ARM OFF AND GET HIS RAY GUN!" Somehow, this never occured to the actors and screenwriters, who have the noble apache indians hitting the space critters with sticks when they run out of arrows.

No nudity, no sex, some mild profanity, lots of video game style violence.

2 stars.
 
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I saw this Monday night with a friend...I thought it was a decent summer popcorn flick. I thought the first half of the film was better, when you were actually anticipating seeing the aliens and learning how Jake got the ray gun on his wrist verses knowing how it happened. Not to get too technical over a b-movie, but I thought the ray guns were controlled by your feelings/thoughts and couldn't even be removed otherwise...and if that is the case getting one off a dead alien would be difficult if not impossible. Anyway...

What did you think of the preacher character who had a fairly prominent role? Seemed to emphasize that "God helps those who help themselves" and "God wants to help if you only let him" type of mentality.
 
It seemed to me that since James Bond's ray gun fell off when he "stopped thinking" it would seem logical to me that once the aliens were dead ("stopped thinking"), then the ray guns would either pop open from the wrist like his did, or be able to be opened from the inside by poking the matrix like Ellie (?) did when she turned his into a bomb.

I thought they treated the Preacher well for Hollywood, other than his slugging at the bottle of whiskey. He seemed to care for the people, and gave practical (non-theological) advice, and of course toted a gun since he was in a western. I thought it was pretty funny when he was trying to teach Doc to shoot in the upside down river boat in the desert (which was never explained). He was written as an action figure and not a theologian.
 
Just got back from watching it. I think I laughed more at the movies stupidity than its intended humour. If you really want to see it, wait until it comes out on video and save yourself the $10...or go watch Harry Potter again.
 
Thank you for the review Mark, well written. I am happy that you are now one of us here on the PB!
 
the movie took itself WAY too seriously.


Thoughout the movie, every single person in the place would say, as soon as an alien was finally killed against great odds "DUDE: CUT HIS ARM OFF AND GET HIS RAY GUN!" Somehow, this never occured to the actors and screenwriters


I think I laughed more at the movies stupidity than its intended humour

This makes me laugh just reading it. To me, this type of movie is sometimes the most enjoyable of all.

Unintentionally hilarious + takes itself too seriously + aliens = WIN (especially if you don't pay theater price for it)
 
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