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Cowboys and Aliens: Steven Spielberg, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, and Harrison Ford
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Every person i've talked to seems underwhelmed, and it's strictly because of how silly the name is. I've had to watch this trailer more times than I could count thanks to frequent trips to the movies this summer, and everyone from friends, family and the audience are usually dead silent when the trailer rolls. Every now and then i'll hear comments about how ridiculous the name is :? It wouldn't bother me if this reaction didn't happen in Texas of all places, and if you can't sell a western movie down here than it's Bad News Bears.
Can a bad movie name really pull down ticket sales of a movie? We'll find out.
I want it to succeed, because Universal is in a real pickle right now ever since Scott Pilgrim bombed royally and they need the money to bounce back up.
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I'm willing to dismiss movies because of their title. But a movie whose title promises you Cowboys and Aliens? Fuck, the title sold me on the film.
Spielberg's movies have a way of succeeding in spite of making some pretty "duh" mistakes, so I expect this one will still do well. Even in those instances where the story falls apart in his films, he still consistently delivers something visually spectacular that leaves the audience entertained.
Thing is, mouth breathers have money they spend on movies in a theater. Discerning, sophisticated moviegoers just torrent it.
This is a Jon Favreau movie, not a Steven Spielberg film. Spielberg may have a "Producer" credit, but that doesn't make the movie his, anymore than it made Transformers, True Grit, The Lovely Bones, Monster House or Men In Black II his movies.
But you are right in that story/plotting missteps don't necessarily hurt a film so long as the other components (visuals, emotion, characterization, score) pick up some of that slack.
That said - I have yet to read a reaction from anyone who saw the press screening/fan preview last night that rates above "shrug"
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You could just as easily have said "you clearly need another cup of coffee, Sammy," and you still would have been right. To the kitchen!
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As do I. I am sad there is no more "His Dark Materials" movies.
Cowboys? Check.
Aliens? Check.
Explosions? Check.
Han Solo/James Bond/13? Check, check, and check.
The general criticism seems to be that it doesn't really go beyond the premise... if you're ok with that, it's a solidly enjoyable flick.
There is no real plot to be had. Just cowboys and aliens.
But...isn't that what you should have been expecting?
Best line in the movie
Someone: Gold.
Harrison: That's ridiculous! What're they gonna do, buy something?
They could have done a lot more with this concept. Fuck.
I got spoilered from a review synopsis on rotten tomatoes which really pissed me off, but it turned out that it didnt really matter except to plot the movie through to the end.
All the stars do great jobs, I really enjoyed them all in their roles. I think this movie was very different at some point (Theres alot of religious undertones, and hell if you are a cowboy and you see a space ship, how do you correlate that), and someone picked it up and said "Shoot this movie, but fuck the words, its gonna be aliens and cowboys shooting at each other."
Also noone mentions it, but Sam Rockwell is in the movie and is pretty awesome as always. I saw his name in credits, but couldnt tell what character he was until about halfway through.
I'm not gonna argue with you on that, but the best part of the movie was:
*crack of douchey son's hand breaking as Craig slides it out of the manacles*
I'd hope for at least that much, but I dunno it has a fairly major ad campaign with major names behind it, but with HP and Captain America there might be some kind of big movie exhaustion.
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The problem, however, is my nerd brain. I guess I'm still looking for the next Star Wars, some enormous galaxy full of wonder and new ideas. District 9 is closer to what I want these days rather than the Thing.
(Actually seeing the setup makes me hopeful for space invaders being an alright popcorn movie)
I want to thank you for this.
I just got back from seeing the film. The "regular" (non-deluxe*) theater was too small and, therefore, crowded forcing me to sit near the front. But the bad thing was the audio problems. Half the trailers were missing some of the dialogue for some reason. The film itself did not seem to have that problem, except for a couple of gunshots and the line you quoted.
Anyway, poor theater experience aside I highly enjoyed the film. Not cinematic excellence by any stretch but it adequately delivered on the expectations I had.
* Carmike is apparently doing a "Deluxe" screen thing with really nice seats and a floor-to-ceiling screen. Didn't want to pay another $2 for that.... but may some other time.
A very surprising waste of talent and concept. Very James Cameron-lite, i.e., a talented cast spouting a bunch of tropes and cliches dressed up to do little other than exactly what it says on the box.
Very disappointing.
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Chief among it's transgressions was the casting of Noah Ringer.
Olivia Wilde's back was hot, wtf are you talking about.
Disappointing in the sense you thought it would transgress the advertisement?
I seem to recall claims from the cast that the title was a starting point and that the actual movie took you in its own direction altogether...
This kind of reminds me of what happened to Your Highness
I second this.
My biggest problem with the movie was... well... Olivia Wilde's character.
The title of the movie is Cowboys & Aliens, not
The movie tries to shoehorn in an explanation for the aliens' behavior that makes no sense. I kind of felt like my intelligence was insulted. Don't get me wrong, I like a stupid action movie. This one was a little too stupid.
To those who say "what were you expecting? it's a movie called Cowboys & Aliens, you get exactly what is shown in the trailers."
Yeah... I guess. Sort of.
But during the second half of the movie, I felt like none of it would have happened without Olivia Wilde's character, who might as well have been billed in the credits as "Miss Exposition." The friendly alien drives the action at that point, putting the humans in the back seat. It felt as though the studio figured that movie audiences wouldn't accept a truly alien horror - they had to humanize it, by making their motivation one that we can understand. Well, by helping us understand it, they actually made it less interesting. The explanation was pretty dumb, anyway. The movie would have been better had they left it out.
Remember Predator? The humans had to figure out the alien on their own. Alien and Aliens? Ditto. The audience is right there along with them, feeling their confusion and fear. These are also very simple movies; they play on our basic instincts. Humans have to survive against a creature higher on the food chain - it doesn't matter why they're here, we just have to kill them or escape.
I kind of resented the presence of the Friendly Alien. It felt a little bit to me like a reverse Avatar or Dances With Wolves. The savages can't hope to defeat the technologically advanced invaders without one of the invaders becoming a turncoat* and leading the savages to victory.
Yes, I understand that Olivia Wilde was a different species of alien. Ultimately, it doesn't matter. The message to the audience is simple - without an alien's help, the humans are screwed.
I started to cringe every time she appeared on-screen. The climactic moment, where she hugs the wristband and smiles, was just a little too over the top to me. It just made me roll my eyes.
There were other moments I disliked, too, but I could have overlooked them had I felt like the general story structure were better. A few that really stuck out at me:
The Mexican dude fumbling with the matches.
I understand that they're using old Western movie tropes, but when those tropes involve racial stereotypes, maybe they'd be better advised to leave them out.
The Colonel's knife was introduced, obviously as a Chekov's Gun, and then fumbled (literally) and reintroduced again. This was awkward and anticlimactic. They should have left the kid without a weapon during his first alien encounter, introduced the knife in the following scene, and went from there.
The aliens wasted too much time roaring and scowling. If they're that intelligent, why do they act like dumb beasts?
Not enough denouement. They defeat the aliens and then all of a sudden everybody in the town is getting along famously. The Colonel and the sheriff like each other, the Colonel's deadbeat son is offered a position in his company. I would have at least liked a few lines of apology between the Colonel and the sheriff or between the Colonel's son and the Colonel. Something to make the transition.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
This was hit on in another review I read, and they called it "Jjabramsitis," where your macguffin is literally everything the script needs it to be at each and every moment. Likewise with the wrist-gun; why would a wrist shackle also offer the powers of x-ray vision, projectile firing, and large-scale detonation?
Not surprisingly, Damon Lindeloff, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman were all involved in this film. It smacks largely of their developing wheelhouse of high-concept, under-written sci-fi tropes.
Also someone please tell me the evolutionary imperative of having your heart exposed at any point ever.
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The deus ex machinas were a little too much.
Any time one human threatened another human and it looked hopeless, I knew the aliens would appear out of nowhere to scare off the bad humans.
Any time an alien threatened a human and it looked hopeless, I knew that the alien's head would explode and the camera would pan to show a secondary character holding a smoking gun.
Somebody should have said to the screenwriters, "You get to use each of these tricks one time. That's it. Use them wisely."
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
And explosions and Olivia Wilde.
The movie delivered on what it promised.
oh man
That spoiler basically destroyed the movie for me. Not in a 'I wish I hadn't seen that spoiler' way, but in a 'I really, really wish they could've come up with something, anything else for that character to do.'
Except it wasn't a shackle, it was an alien weapon he accidentally stole from them. The detonation wasn't really a "power", unless you consider the ability to make a gun misfire a "power".
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