Cowboys & Aliens [DVD]

After a somewhat slow start, Cowboys And Aliens turns into a fun scifi western. It's a surprisingly dark and gritty film, playing like a straight western at first. Imagine you're watching an old John Wayne movie. You're enjoying it, and suddenly alien spaceships come out of nowhere blasting everything in sight and kidnapping the locals. That in a nutshell is the plot, sounds ridiculous, looks ridiculous but if not taken seriously, despite the surprisingly dark and gritty tone then it's also a lot of fun. Some good performances, Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde are all very good and there's a solid supporting cast too. All the western cliches are there, Daniel Craig is the stranger with no name, Harrison Ford the rich bad man that runs the town and then the spaceships arrive. Very good fx and good action scenes make this a fun movie.

I was quite skeptical about this movie. What were they thinking about mixing two completely unlike genres, cowboys, Apaches and aliens together? Well, my mistake. The end result is both a good western and a very credible sci-fi movie. So, out of an apparent weird mix came out an original movie under a plausible story line (Sorry, no spoiler, I will not go into the details of the plot).

I really liked the performance of Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. All three main actors have in common to be associated with their roles in previous serial movies or TV series, where they played the lead or a key role. In this movie they managed to deliver a performance quite different from the character we are used to, particularly Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde. I think this is her first key role other than "House" in which you can appreciate the quality of her acting. I hope she gets more opportunities like this to show us her talent.

As for the special effects, they are quite realistic, and it is notable that the insect-like aliens are not hidden with low lighting like in so many alien movies. The amazing thing is that the SFX are not based completely on computer animations (GCI). The film was shot using good old puppets and animatronics for the close-ups, combined with CGI for the battle scenes. Even some of the alien ships were scale models. My only quibble is that one of the alien features resembles a lot the character Kuato in Total Recall [DVD] (no spoiler again). My respects to director Jon Favreau, a great combination of old and new technology.

With such a blatant, incongruous title, you'd expect this film to be silly, badly made schlock, but the surprising thing is that it's not. Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and the other actors to a man play the entire thing straight and serious, and you find yourself believing them and buying into the genre mash-up premise which initially you'd be forgiven for thinking sounded cheesy and ridiculous. Not only that but the cast, and in particular Craig and Ford, put in solid, strong performances that give their characters the stamp of depth and three-dimensionality. And there isn't too much time in which to achieve this - the focus is, after all, the action-filled clashes between the eponymous factions of the film's title, but I got the sense that the film wouldn't let itself be rushed and that time was specifically set aside during the first half an hour to establish this authentic Wild West setting and populate it with realistic, believable inhabitants, and then give them their moments to grow and develop later on even as the action with the aliens began to take centre stage. I appreciated that.

The CGI and special effects are done well and are fairly seamless, but the most impressive thing is how they are used. They're used sparingly, and their presence always serves the story rather than the other way around; the film isn't awash with them, which I found unexpected given the comic book basis of the film - again, given the film's seemingly silly title you'd be forgiven for assuming that the film is like every other comic book based movie, with CGI coming at you a mile a minute, but it isn't. Oh, you'll get your money's worth if CGI is what you want - it's done well, it's impressive, and there's plenty of it at the film's exciting climax - but as I said, it serves the story, and wherever it was possible to film a scene without CGI the filmmakers have used the real thing. It just takes the film up just a little bit, lends it an extra stamp of realism and believability.

The plot isn't exactly sophisticated stuff, and that's not a criticism, simply a fact. The goal of the characters is simple: rescue their loved ones and stop the alien threat (and for Jake, find out what happened to him and why). It's a clear cut motivation, and the film executes it extremely well. Every scene has a purpose in advancing this plot, every scene is well acted, shot well, dressed well, and all the elements come together. I wasn't really interested in the subject matter of the story too much at first, but because it was so well put together and well executed, it was an entertaining, satisfying, enjoyable film. All in all I would definitely recommend Cowboys and Aliens.