Cowboys and Aliens

Well to be fair I didn't hate this film. It was mostly ok. The trouble is, that a two hundred million dollar film ought to be better than ok. Is that fair to judge on the curve of budget? Maybe not, but a big price tag tells me we are dealing with pros and pros should be able to do more.

The story is fairly simple. Guy wakes up with no memory in the middle of nowhere with a doohickey on his wrist. Guy is a bad ass but is hurt so he finds the nearest town to get fixed up. Turns out the guy is a notorious bandit so he gets nicked by the local law. Now aliens and Harrison Ford show up (what is this Indy 4?) and there's a big fight. Turns out the doohickey is some alien weapon and our hero (?) blows a couple of ships out of the sky. Harrison loses his no good son to the aliens so he and our hero partner up to form a posse. Also coming is the local preacher/doc, a kid, a dog, oh and a mysterious lady.

They trapse around the west fighting aliens, and meeting up with bandits and native americans. They find out the aliens are here for gold. Our hero gets his memory back. The mysterious lady reveals her mysteries, and they finally find the alien hive and have a big ol' battle. It really does sound far more exciting than it is, which is the shame of it.

So what went wrong? It's hard to put into words, but I think it is just that the actors didn't give any energy to the audience. They are there, they act just fine, but there's no connection. No spark. Ok, good example, looke at Harrison Ford's performance here, then go look at 3 seconds in Star Wars where he says "Trust me." There is more connection, and charisma in those three seconds then in all of this film. The only actor that brought anything like that energy is Clancy Brown who played the preacher.

So in short, the plus is that it's not "The Wild, Wild West," the movie. The minus is that it's not "The WIld, Wild West," the TV show.