Cowboys and Aliens

Cowboys and Aliens (2011) dir. Jon Favreau
Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, with Paul Dano and Sam Rockwell wandering around looking kind of lost.

*

By Blair Stewart

To be honest with you good readers I have a soft-spot for westerns and sci-fi, snooty cinemaphile pretentiousness be damned. I know every note of Morricone's 'Ecstacy of Gold' score like it's a childhood pet, and there's isn't another film release I anticipated in adolescence more than "Alien 3" (I learned the disappointments of youthful hope on that Friday in '92, and a few years later with Eyes Wide Shut after I got into Kubrick in order to pick up arty broads, so lesson learned on 'anticipating' I suppose). Anyways, there are many ways one could make an enjoyable film concerning Cowboys and Aliens, certainly when you have $160 million to toss around like a big shot, but one method you shouldn't use is half-assed.

How I hate this film, oh lordy lordy let me count the ways.

Emerging from the chintzy-hole of other hacky cash-grabs executive producer Steven Spielberg with his fellow hydra heads of Brian Glazer and Ron Howard join forces with masters of episodic boilerplate prose Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci to bring a forgettable graphic novel to the screen because, dammit, it was easy to sell to Universal. No doubt the post-pitch words ringing through the hallways of movie-studio purse strings were "You know, for kids!?" Most likely empty terms like 'dynamic storytelling' and 'emotional resonance' were used in the early press releases before cameras rolled. Jon Favreau then wandered in bewildered and feverish from being lost in the Alkali salt wastes and was coerced into signing on in return for some refreshing Evian, so here we are.

A Man with No Name named Jake (Daniel Craig, stage name Sir Pouty Lips McGillicutty) wakes up in the Arizona badlands of 1800-something-or-other with an iWatch from Centaurus welded to his wrist. He shoots some blaggards with fireballs he nicked from Street Fighter II's Ryu-'Hadouken!'-and is eventually dragged to jail in a one-horse town to face the wrath of cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford with sly comic timing for a dude who is always really high on-set, but otherwise lazy) for crossing paths with his weasel of a son Percy (Paul Dano, paying bills). Meanwhile, strange local woman Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde, who on her Wikipedia page states about herself being "really critical and analytical" hahahahahawhataboutthisfilmladyhahahaha?) appears when the story needs her to fill in exposition and cover plot potholes. Aliens show up, Indians show up, Daniel Craig does mescaline and nearly relives the utterly terrifying abduction sequence of D.B. Sweeney from 1993's "Fire in the Sky", shit done gets blown up good yessir, FIN, $160 million poorly spent.

Now how could I hate a film like this? It's supposed to fun and lightweight and all homagey to the John Fords and Ridley Scotts of their genres? Because it's average. It's average in scope, in imagination, in intention, its dialogue and mood and filming and pacing and entertainment and acting-average, average, average. The aliens themselves? Totally forgettable, and probably their concept was a rush-job like the rest of this film. The only thing that isn't average in "Cowboys and Aliens" is Craig and Wilde's performances, both of which are terrible, like most of their work. Let us just listen to the title alone: "Cowboys and Aliens". Couldn't even bother to come up with a nifty title like "Strange Rider" or "Deadcreek" or "Showdown at the E.T. Corral". Nope, "Cowboys and Aliens", from the studio that brought you 'Explosions and Tits', cue the lousy guitar solo, now stuff your face with some popcorn.

Riding home from the theater after watching this I discovered I had left my phone somewhere in Leicester Square and never found it. I blame this shitty film, which is now yours to own on BluRay, DVD and online from Netflix.

Iron Man 2

Iron Man 2 (2010) dir. Jon Favreau
Starring: Robert Downey Jr. Don Cheadle, Mickey Rourke, Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johanson

**

By Alan Bacchus

Remember when Iron Man came out, and shortly after its success, press swirled about Jon Favreau’s reluctance to quickly put its sequel into production without proper development and prep? And for a while there Favreau's participation really was up in the air. Of course, he smartly stayed on board (his producer Peter Billingsley did not), took the paycheque, delivered a competent movie which has coasted to a huge box office riding on the coattails of the previous film. But the dullness and soullessness of “Iron Man 2” only proves that Favreau was right. IM2 feels like a hastily put together slapdashery without any of the genuine love for character which made the first film so unique for it's genre.

The failure of “Iron Man 2” just shows why the first movie was so good in the first place. It took half the movie before we even saw the Iron Man suit, an hour long build up of suspense to reveal Tony Stark’s alter ego. Now, at the top of IM2, the suit is built, Iron Man is already a superhero, and there’s very little to reveal in this film. Stark's character reverts to his egomaniac capitalist persona again, having started up his own Stark Expo in New York and very publicly fighting off the US Military who want access to his suit.

The baddie this time round is Mickey Rourke as a Russian scientist Ivan Danko who seeks revenge against Stark for his wrongdoings against his father, in some manufactured backstory. Rourke’s scene chewing is to be expected and his overly tattooed and generally dirty appearance is off-putting, and even stranger is that he spends most of his screen time typing away at a computer. His introduction builds up wonderfully to the film’s best sequence, a fight with Stark and Iron Man at the Monaco Grand Prix. Unfortunately his character is left aimless without seemingly much purpose or ‘stuff to do’ until he shows up at the end for another big fight scene, with, of course another big-ass metal suit.

We all knew Rhodey would get more involved, don one Stark’s suits and join him in the fight. Unfortunately Don Cheadle doesn’t fit the suit as well as Terrence Howard might have, in fact he actually looks awkward encased in metal, a suit whose CG rendering looks glaringly obvious this time round.

The sexual tension between Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Pots character which generated the best character development for Stark, is rendered virtually inert in this one. Same with the future Avengers plotting. Of course we know Marvel is laying ground work for an eventual link up of their superhero characters for an ultimate supermovie with Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Captain America. Unfortunately we only get a minor scraping of this story. In fact, most of the Nick Fury/Agent Coulson scenes serve more as comic relief than a broadening of the mythology of the story. Like IM1 and The Incredible Hulk we’re treated to a post-end credits scene teasing us for the Avengers film. “Thor” makes his first appearance, which indeed picks up the excitement factor...

Scarlett Johanson makes the best addition. At once a neat sexual tease and competition for Pepper Pots as well as a good excuse for an action scene which doesn’t involve the Iron Man suit. Her break in to Hammer’s layer and the hand-to-hand choreography is magnificent.

Despite Scarjo, “Iron Man 2” is otherwise a flatline affair. No one really seems to know what to do with Iron Man, the suit, Pepper Pots, SHIELD, Rhodey or Ivan Danko. Everyone seems lost and lacking in guidance. Paramount should have listened to Favreau two years ago.