......and thought it was easily passable as a mindless, summertime, escapist, action flick, which was all it was meant to be and exactly what I was expecting.
The Link
Beware of possible spoilers ahead!!!!!
Starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, this movie, if taken with a few grains of salt, might explain what could have happened decades before a crashed alien space craft was supposedly discovered on a ranch just NW of Roswell, NM in 1947 and was then subsequently explained away, by the Army, as merely being a lost weather balloon.
I've always thought all that missing balloon stuff sounded made up and, by golly, this may be the rest of the story.
Perhaps, this movie sheds some light on all those darned cattle mutilations too.
I mean, there's more going on out there with the cows than sawing their horns off.
I was well entertained by this theatrically thrilling tale: sometimes by the gritty action and slam bang special effects, sometimes by the suspenseful and scary parts, sometimes by all that beautiful Western scenery, sometimes by the authentic looking cowboy and Indian costumes or the realistic set decoration from that period, sometimes by the homage given to and/or the derivative movie making which I originally saw in earlier horse operas and creature classics and also by numerous chuckle inducing bits which I think were sometimes intended and sometimes unintended to be laughable.
There was a dog that looked just like John Wayne's constant canine companion from "Hondo," an ambush in a box canyon similar to "The Big Country," a fist fight reminiscent of that one Butch Cassidy had with a would be leader of his Hole in the Wall Gang and a leap rivaling the one he and Sundance made jumping into water from a height.
And that was just some of the cowboy stuff.
I couldn't help but imagine what Roy Rogers and Dale Evans could have done with material as good and horsey as this.
Or John Ford.
I had no real problem with this movie, which delivered exactly what it promised.
The Indians might have a case should they complain about not being credited in the title.
But, somewhere there's probably some treaty they signed sometime that cheats them out of receiving equal billing.
Having personally seen almost every creature feature and/or sagebrush saga ever filmed, I can definitely say that this cinematic offering was indeed one of them.
I even remember a Saturday Kid's Show serial about "The Ghost Riders of Phantom Ranch" or something like that, way back in the 1950s.
So, I've always enjoyed cinematic events featuring cowboys and/or aliens and, if you do too, then this one may be for you.
Especially, if you dig paying divided attention to "Ancient Aliens" or, maybe, "MonsterQuest" on the History Channel, while you're browsing or posting on the Internet, as do I.
This was, actually, a pretty cool and exciting flick; however, I didn't find it very memorable or particularly unique among the films I recall from the specific and limited science fiction subgenre which has its setting in what I'll refer to as (please, forgive me) "Oater Space."
I was quite well-entertained.
Really.
Of course, suspension of belief is required when watching to enjoy all science fiction and many Westerns.
In "Cowboys & Aliens," I managed to suspend and then believe everything offered for my entertainment except when, very early on, a bar maid charged a thirsty trailrider 50 cents for his glass of beer.
I found this COMPLETELY unbelievable, since that's what a cold beer cost me in the beer joints around Aggieland in the 1960s.
I believe a nickle would be more like what a parched cowpoke would expect to pay back then.
Please correct me if I'm wrong about this, because I want to be fair.
Anyway, the rest of the movie seemed much, much, much more believable to me than him paying fifty cents for a probably warm beer in or about the 1870s and, as I said, I went along with everything else in the movie more easily after that.
BTW, I must say I found the cowboys and Indians of "oater space" to be more believable than these particular invaders from outer space, who obviously had the know how to journey to Earth but yet were so inept (or, as this movie explained it, over confident) as to get their ugly, alien *sses kicked, while fighting mostly hand to hand against an eclectic ensemble of Earthlings, as this film climaxed.
I think the still brilliant literary imagineering of H. G. Wells in his "War of the Worlds," wherein physically weak aliens with their shielded machines seemingly protecting them and their vastly superior ray guns blasting are rather simply vanquished in the end by the tiny, unseen bacteria of our world, rather than by the helpless humans who usually figure we're safe at the top of Earth's food chain, or, as another example, those "resistance is futile" Borg dudes from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," who boast of their ability to have assimilated every species in the Universe that they've come across, make far more interesting threats from beyond than any of the failed cosmic creatures such as those recently featured in "Cloverfield," "District 9," "Super 8" and, now, "Cowboys & Aliens."
My movie memory recalls other entertaining Western/science fiction from my past viewing experience, namely: Michael Crichton's futuristic fantasy about "West World" starring Yul Brynner, James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, "The Valley of Gwangi" in which James Franciscus and his vaquero amigos try to corral a rampaging T-Rex for a Mexican circus, the cleverly continued "Back to the Future, Part III" or the quite fun to watch "Tremors 4: The Legend Begins" and, lastly, Will Smith and Kevin Kline laboring with diminishing effect in their big screen version of "Wild, Wild West."
IMHO, "Cowboys & Aliens," though it's not really that unique or memorable, easily holds its own with any of these cowboy/creature features.
Whether that evaluation suggests it's a movie you'd want to see is, of course, entirely up to you.
BTW, if you get excited about genre blenders like this one, be on the lookout for "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," coming soon to a theater near you.
.I guess the title proves that zombies must have better agents representing them in Hollywood than the Indians do.
No kidding, all you movie mashup mavens:
The Link
Your thoughts?
Gig 'em, FAST FRED '65.
Before the world wide web, village idiots usually stayed in their own village.
The Link
Beware of possible spoilers ahead!!!!!
Starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, this movie, if taken with a few grains of salt, might explain what could have happened decades before a crashed alien space craft was supposedly discovered on a ranch just NW of Roswell, NM in 1947 and was then subsequently explained away, by the Army, as merely being a lost weather balloon.
I've always thought all that missing balloon stuff sounded made up and, by golly, this may be the rest of the story.
Perhaps, this movie sheds some light on all those darned cattle mutilations too.
I mean, there's more going on out there with the cows than sawing their horns off.
I was well entertained by this theatrically thrilling tale: sometimes by the gritty action and slam bang special effects, sometimes by the suspenseful and scary parts, sometimes by all that beautiful Western scenery, sometimes by the authentic looking cowboy and Indian costumes or the realistic set decoration from that period, sometimes by the homage given to and/or the derivative movie making which I originally saw in earlier horse operas and creature classics and also by numerous chuckle inducing bits which I think were sometimes intended and sometimes unintended to be laughable.
There was a dog that looked just like John Wayne's constant canine companion from "Hondo," an ambush in a box canyon similar to "The Big Country," a fist fight reminiscent of that one Butch Cassidy had with a would be leader of his Hole in the Wall Gang and a leap rivaling the one he and Sundance made jumping into water from a height.
And that was just some of the cowboy stuff.
I couldn't help but imagine what Roy Rogers and Dale Evans could have done with material as good and horsey as this.
Or John Ford.
I had no real problem with this movie, which delivered exactly what it promised.
The Indians might have a case should they complain about not being credited in the title.
But, somewhere there's probably some treaty they signed sometime that cheats them out of receiving equal billing.
Having personally seen almost every creature feature and/or sagebrush saga ever filmed, I can definitely say that this cinematic offering was indeed one of them.
I even remember a Saturday Kid's Show serial about "The Ghost Riders of Phantom Ranch" or something like that, way back in the 1950s.
So, I've always enjoyed cinematic events featuring cowboys and/or aliens and, if you do too, then this one may be for you.
Especially, if you dig paying divided attention to "Ancient Aliens" or, maybe, "MonsterQuest" on the History Channel, while you're browsing or posting on the Internet, as do I.
This was, actually, a pretty cool and exciting flick; however, I didn't find it very memorable or particularly unique among the films I recall from the specific and limited science fiction subgenre which has its setting in what I'll refer to as (please, forgive me) "Oater Space."
I was quite well-entertained.
Really.
Of course, suspension of belief is required when watching to enjoy all science fiction and many Westerns.
In "Cowboys & Aliens," I managed to suspend and then believe everything offered for my entertainment except when, very early on, a bar maid charged a thirsty trailrider 50 cents for his glass of beer.
I found this COMPLETELY unbelievable, since that's what a cold beer cost me in the beer joints around Aggieland in the 1960s.
I believe a nickle would be more like what a parched cowpoke would expect to pay back then.
Please correct me if I'm wrong about this, because I want to be fair.
Anyway, the rest of the movie seemed much, much, much more believable to me than him paying fifty cents for a probably warm beer in or about the 1870s and, as I said, I went along with everything else in the movie more easily after that.
BTW, I must say I found the cowboys and Indians of "oater space" to be more believable than these particular invaders from outer space, who obviously had the know how to journey to Earth but yet were so inept (or, as this movie explained it, over confident) as to get their ugly, alien *sses kicked, while fighting mostly hand to hand against an eclectic ensemble of Earthlings, as this film climaxed.
I think the still brilliant literary imagineering of H. G. Wells in his "War of the Worlds," wherein physically weak aliens with their shielded machines seemingly protecting them and their vastly superior ray guns blasting are rather simply vanquished in the end by the tiny, unseen bacteria of our world, rather than by the helpless humans who usually figure we're safe at the top of Earth's food chain, or, as another example, those "resistance is futile" Borg dudes from "Star Trek: The Next Generation," who boast of their ability to have assimilated every species in the Universe that they've come across, make far more interesting threats from beyond than any of the failed cosmic creatures such as those recently featured in "Cloverfield," "District 9," "Super 8" and, now, "Cowboys & Aliens."
My movie memory recalls other entertaining Western/science fiction from my past viewing experience, namely: Michael Crichton's futuristic fantasy about "West World" starring Yul Brynner, James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, "The Valley of Gwangi" in which James Franciscus and his vaquero amigos try to corral a rampaging T-Rex for a Mexican circus, the cleverly continued "Back to the Future, Part III" or the quite fun to watch "Tremors 4: The Legend Begins" and, lastly, Will Smith and Kevin Kline laboring with diminishing effect in their big screen version of "Wild, Wild West."
IMHO, "Cowboys & Aliens," though it's not really that unique or memorable, easily holds its own with any of these cowboy/creature features.
Whether that evaluation suggests it's a movie you'd want to see is, of course, entirely up to you.
BTW, if you get excited about genre blenders like this one, be on the lookout for "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies," coming soon to a theater near you.
.I guess the title proves that zombies must have better agents representing them in Hollywood than the Indians do.
No kidding, all you movie mashup mavens:
The Link
Your thoughts?
Gig 'em, FAST FRED '65.
Before the world wide web, village idiots usually stayed in their own village.
