Movieman Madness: Cinema Spotlight VI - Jon Favreau (Part 7): "Cowboys & Aliens"

I am Iron Man-I mean James Bond-I mean Zeke Jackson, no wait.....

Indiana Jones, James Bond, Quorra, Justin Hammer, the Last Airbender, and Mr. Krabs, fighting aliens in the wild, wild, west? With Jon Favreau directing and Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Steven Spielberg producing? Sign me in!

Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) meeting Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig).

Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the desert with no memory and a metal bracelet attached to his wrist. Arriving at the nearest town he encounters the locals including a preacher (Clancy Brown), a saloon owner (Sam Rockwell), the Sheriff's grandson (Noah Ringer) a mysterious woman (Olivia Wilde) and the cattleman's trouble-making son (Paul Dano) and right-hand man (Adam Beach). The town sheriff (Keith Carradine) and gruff cattleman Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) immediately recognize Lonergan as an outlaw but before you can say "stick em up," anti-social aliens arrive, attack and abduct. A posse is formed to rescue the hostages with Lonergan tagging along; turns out his metallic wristband can turn into an Iron Man blaster and seems to be the only weapon to do real damage on the aliens.

Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano) causing trouble for Doc (Sam Rockwell)
with Nat Colorado (Adam Beach) and Jed Parker (Chris Browning) watching.

Cowboys & Aliens is my kind of sci-fi fun.When was the last time outside of maybe television, where cowboys from the 1800's involve high-tech gear not from that time-frame? Back to Future III had its time travel plot which was awesome and Wild Wild West with its steampunk feel but many prefer to forget that film. A B-movie with competent filmmakers behind the camera, and a big enough budget to afford state-of-the-art special effects, and star power.

Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his gang arrive in town...

The movie is based on a graphic novel of the same name that has alot going for but opts for a loose adaptation by sticking to the concept but changing the story and characters. The aliens themselves are a disappointment. In the book they were intelligent but ruthless, could speak English, and knew not to underestimate the humans. The aliens in the movie know how to operate their machines but act like wild animals who just grunt and roar. I get that are meant to be portrayed as savage invaders but so were the aliens in the book except they had strategy and skill, hence more difficult to defeat.

......along with some visitors from outer space.

The climax was another missed opportunity. The book had the heroes using alien tech they managed to obtain knowing full well that their earthly weaponry wouldn't be enough. In the movie, they simply charge at the them with only guns, and bow and arrows. The fight is a distraction while Jake, being the only one to have an alien weapon, head's into the ship The aliens quickly pick them off that I'm surprised there were any survivors. Both the book and movie present an extraterrestrial twist, that could have worked in the movie but its presentation comes off like Alien Resurrection.

Jake and Dollarrhyde survey the wreckage.

Of the things that do make it to the movie is some small-talk of Christianity, and unity against a common enemy. So if the movie doesn't do it for you, I highly recommend in giving the book a read.

Meacham (Clancy Brown), Doc and Emmett (Noah Ringer) follow behind.

There may be alot to break apart in Cowboys & Aliens but what saves it are the characters. The journey they go on, with Jake trying to remember who he was, and Dolarhyde's connection with his son, courtesy of the Favreau father-figure trope. Zathura was Favreau's first bout in making action scenes and improved with the Iron Man movies. The action while underwhelming at times is still well-made with the alien ships and the Iron Man wristband.

Zathura also gave Favreau the chance to inject that Spielberg sci-fi touch. With this movie he gets to do it again but with Spielberg this time present. The aliens do seem to take inspiration from Spielberg's War of The Worlds, from being non-speaking creatures, being more buff in size, and their ships having a tentacle-like mechanism.

Cowboys & Aliens premiered on July 29, 2011. The reviews were mixed mostly leaning on the negative side, audiences were even crueler leaving the movie to flop at the box-office. If you didn't know the context behind the movie I can understand why audiences might have found the title and premise too silly. The western genre was also in rut, no longer the box-office goldmine it used to be. It's recent crop of movies like Wild Wild West and The Lone Ranger didn't help that I wouldn't blame audiences who view this as a sad attempt to make the westerns cool.

For all its faults and not living up to the book, Cowboys & Aliens is fun sci-fi pulp on the likes of John Carter. Interestingly, Favreau's next project after Zathura was to be John Carter but turned it down and went on to do Iron Man. The movie was eventually made and like Cowboys & Aliens was based on existing written material, given a big budget, took place in the sci-fi genre, but bombed at the box-office. Neither were taken to their full potential but for what they accomplished, its serviceable.