Review of Cowboys & Aliens (2011) by Matthew H — 20 May 2017

Fails at the most basic, fundamental level - the script. The idea of cowboys fighting aliens could have been a fun, B-movie romp. Instead its a murky shade of grey - not dark enough to be scary, not light enough to be fun. And it forgets that audiences need 1 thing in a film like this, before all the spectacle - characters we care about. There is no character to give a damn about, and thus the plot is completely boring. The acting and direction is flat and the alien looks like a digital mutant turtle. And they utterly wasted the best talent in the whole cast - Sam Rockwell. Favreau's 'Iron Man' only worked because Tony Stark was a great character. Favreau can't expect his films to be good if doesn't learn that - and fast.

Here's some ideas on how this film could've been great;.

1) Piss off Daniel 'boring' Craig, his bronze muscles and his 14 lines of dialogue.

2) Make Sam Rockwell the lead, along with buddy, and have the movie about these two deadbeat, idiot, likeable cowboys who get swept into saving a town being plagued by aliens.

3) Fill the script with witty one-liners, tongue-in-cheek dialogue and larger-than-life characters played by audience favorites.

4) Make the aliens a little bit scary, and less like a kids scrapbook sketch.

5) Piss of Favreau and make him go back to film school for the debacle that was Iron Man 2.

6) Tell Harrison Ford that he needs to stop agreeing to being in shit films (Indy 4 anyone?).

7) Speed up the whole damn show and pack more action and character into its running time.

They used to be able to make films like this in the 80's. 20 years later, Hollywood seems to have forgotten how.

I mostly blame CGI.