Sunday, July 31, 2011

Movie Mini-Review: "Cowboys and Aliens"


Git along, little dogies.


Hey, "Cowboys and Aliens" promises .... errr, cowboys and aliens, and the flick does indeed give you cowboys and aliens shooting each other up.  Yay for truth in advertising!  (The poster does look very "Witchblade"-y, doesn't it?)

I'm super busy today, but let me just say this for now: In terms of the sci fi-meets-Western subgenre, "Cowboys and Aliens" isn't as good as "Firefly" or "Serenity," but it's better than "Wild Wild West" (and most probably much better than "Jonah Hex," a notoriously awful flick that I refused to see and that the Cine-Sib hates with a venomous passion).

Reliably watchable A-list actors Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford take to the screen as the cowboys in question, while Olivia Wilde is the obligatory girly gunslinger eye candy, but Sam Rockwell's in it too as a supporting character, and as usual in such cases, he turns out to be scene-stealingly more interesting than the leads.  Oh, and Cine-Sib -- the Mexican actress who was Sister Encarnación in "Nacho Libre" is here too, so I suppose that means you'll stampede to the cinema!

Check out this positive review from io9.  The flick has plenty of action, good cinematography of the wild Western vistas, and a bonanza of cool effects, though it has a whole slate of flaws too.  For one thing, it's uneven in lots of spots.  I'd give it a C+ or maybe B-.  RottenTomatoes gives it a middling rating of 44%.

2 comments:

lumpy said...

As I remember, the Wild Wild West TV series was better, but then, I watched the re-runs as a kid, and pretty much everything was better then.

Mad Minerva said...

Oh, I should have clarified -- "Wild Wild West" the horrible movie from 1999 with Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh.