Mr. Smith vs. Cowboys and Aliens

Spoilers abound. Trust me. I’m doing you a favor.

[all photos: Cowboys and Aliens official site]

Cowboys & Aliens is Jon Favreau’s latest non-Iron Man offering (other non-Iron Man offerings include wonderful films, such as Elf, which was a lot of fun, and Zathura: A Space Adventure, which was just space Jumanji). This is another in a looooong series of disappointing movies based on graphic novels that nobody ever heard of until the movie came out and now because it’s trendy everybody claims to have read it and can tell you how brilliant they are (i.e. Sin City, 300, and Watchmen — all great films, in my estimation, as well as books). I have no idea if the comic for this was any good, I’m not going to have claimed to have read it, but I’m almost certain that it didn’t have the STAGGERING number of film cliches in which this film seems to wallow.

Starring Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan, an outlaw of dubious repute that wakes up with a bad case of memory loss and a steampunky bit of wrist apparel that apparently is impervious to blunt force trauma. This is the first rule of “That which we do not understand.” Beat it with a rock. Rocks abound in this world, as the film is set in the the most dry, scrub covered, desolate and economically sad cattle range offered in the 1873 Sears Real Estate Catalog. Why anyone would raise cattle in the desert, I have no idea, but it’s important to the story, or at least if gives Harrison Ford a reason to be there.

So Jake wakes up in the middle of nowhere, with no memory of who he is or what he was doing. The only thing he seems to know is English, which is good, because I wouldn’t have enjoyed this movie if our protagonist was Portuguese throughout act one, and then after a sudden flashback, he starts inexplicably speaking English, much to the relief of those who were really sick of making hand gestures and drawing in the dirt. No. Wait. I think I would have really enjoyed that. That didn’t happen though, and so we have Jake being picked up by some rough tumblers who figure since he’s got a manacle on his wrist, he must have a bounty on him, so they attempt to bring him in. But Jake’s not having that, because apparently he’s developed his own brand of kung fu in order to administer brutal beatings on those that attempt to inconvenience him in any way. Which he uses, and it’s pretty awesome. The fight choreography in this film is great, and totally believable, in an “I’m alright with highly choreographed and implausible fight sequences” kind of way.

With his first scrape out of the way, Jake then heads to town, where we meet Sam Rockwell as Doc. He’s the barkeep, not the Doctor. The Doctor is a whole different guy, who is not called doc, apparently. Which makes me wonder about the character names in this film. Not wonder, really, but notice, rather. All of the names are solid cowboy names. There’s Jake of course, there’s a Jed, Wes, Luke, Mose, Meacham, Nat, and Emmit, and an Alice and Maria, to soften the edges a bit. But all those guys sound really tough, and every western needs a craven, and that’s gotta be Percy. Yup. There’s a Percy.

Percy is played by Paul Dano, whom you may remember as the evangelical preacher from the film There Will Be Blood. He’s got a milkshake, remember? For this film, he draws a little from the preacher character, but the rest was drawn from what he learned in the Ben Afleck School of  Drama and Voice Cracking. That’s not to say he doesn’t represent himself well, but what are you gonna do when you have a scene with Lords of Stoicism like Daniel Craig and Han Solo -er- Harrison Ford. Percy pretty much gets punched or told to shut up throughout the film, so as comedic fodder, his acting borders on appropriate. Barely.

There’s a big to-do in the street that causes both Jake and Percy to get arrested, and as they are getting loaded up to be taken to some other town where they can be some other marshal’s problem. Percy’s dad, Woodrow (really.), played by the guy from Air Force One, shows up to take Jake for himself. Apparently, before Jake lost his memory, he stole a bunch of gold that was meant for Indiana Jones -er- Woodrow. So there’s a little conflict there. Basically, Harrison Ford is the grumpiest of the grumpy Cattle Barons, and pretty much runs everything, including the legal system, which I’ve seen before, and in a way, give the film a little Chekhovian flavor. Chekhov always had an evil landlord of some kind, who would exact his will on the innocent, whoever they turned out to be. He pretty much invented the mellow-drama, which is pretty much what this film is.

ENTER THE ALIENS!!!

The first attack sequence, if I’m not mistaken, was shot seemingly entirely with practical effects. It was incredible. Truly wonderful. It is during this sequence that it is revealed, providing you didn’t see the trailer or half the promotional art, that Jake’s bracelet is an instrument of doom. DOOM I SAY. Jake uses his wrist plasma shooter thing to bring down the big metal bug that kept blowing up the town, but not before his buddies could abduct a couple folks, that just happen to be important to some of the characters with cool sounding names.

And we’re off. All the elements are now in place for a rip-roaring adventure. And that’s pretty much what we get from that point forward, a typical Hollywood, head up its butt, blockbuster stereotype of Michael Bay proportions. It’s fun, it’s just completely predictable and filled with western movie cliches. There’s the part where the party gets separated, and despite being miles and miles apart, they all end up back in the same spot, with kind of a “Oh, there you are” to wrap things up. There were about three of those. There was the tepee meeting, where the white man has to walk on eggshells to avoid irritating the Chief of the tribe, but luckily the party of heroes is equipped with an ex-native translator that can help smooth things over when they start to get hairy, and the “Where’s mah gold” moment, etc.

The Native American folks join the hero’s party and they make a plan to assault and foil the plans of the evil Aliens, with the help of another alien, who came out of nowhere after apparently being killed and then resurrected by a bonfire. Welcome to the left field. Betcha didn’t see that coming.

There’s a big battle with a bunch of CGI creatures, that look a lot like the cave troll in the lord of the rings, only a little more fit, and with a very suggestive opening in their chest. VERY suggestive. And weird.

The good guys win of course, after destroying the alien mining ship. Oh. Did I mention the whole reason the aliens were here was to extract our gold, as it is apparently a rare enough resource to justify enslaving and eradicating an entire planet of it’s indigenous population, starting in the desert, where there really isn’t any gold in the first place. Apparently the ship kind of dug it’s way into the earth, engines first. So all we really get to see until the very end is the tip of this ship. If anybody wants to say something about that, please consult the Cliche Council, as I’ve had about all I can take.

What really got me, what really made me hang my head, was the ending. This film’s message, if I had to pick one, would be that it’s always better to work together against a common foe. So after it’s all over, why not have a ho-down? I’ll tell you why not. These people were, with the exception of Sam Rockwell, the whores with hearts of gold, and the natives, all bad. Murderers, thieves, degenerates and the generally badly behaved. We’re supposed to believe that they can all live together in peace and prosperity? Naw. I’d give it a week. Then I bet the dude from “Justified” (Walter Goggins) ends up killing the sheriff over some a misunderstanding about the ownership of something or the other.

I had a good time watching this film. I did. I just didn’t like that they clearly spent WAY more time writing it than they should have. This film was written by egos. Over the course of several years, this film was written and re-written, until all the potential edginess was systematically removed for the sake of demographics and sales. Quite disappointing to me, and it seems to happen a lot lately. It missed the mark by a long way.

I give it a D+ out of ten. I don’t know what that means either, but then I don’t really use ratings.

We’ll talk again soon,

Mr. Smith