Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

Image From IMDB

While I enjoyed Cowboys & Aliens back in the cinema back in 2011 it didn’t quite live up to my lofty expectations. It just wasn’t dumb enough for me. I wanted something stupid with a title like that. Something more akin to Mars Attack!, or Eight Legged Freaks. So, while I liked the movie, I felt a little deflated by its seriousness.

Nearly fifteen years on, that seriousness now feels like its major strength. I’ve gone from thinking it’s an ok sci-fi B-Movie, to thinking it’s a solid western with aliens in it. This movie was never meant to be Mars Attack! and i’m glad I can watch it now without that preconception. Maybe if it didn’t have such a B-Movie title my little brain wouldn’t have been confused in the first place, but it is what it is.

Cowboys & Aliens follows a group of cowboys in a poor town back in the wild west as they search for their friends and family who were suddenly abducted by aliens. Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford lead the way as the mysterious Jake, and the no-nonsense Dolarhyde. Together, they need to overcome their differences, and save their people from the extraterrestrial threat.

As mentioned, the strength of this movie in hindsight is the serious tone it takes. The movie works well as a gritty western with the two macho gunslingers clashing as the town falls into crisis. The aliens then add to the experience, rather than dominate it and twist it into a movie it’s not. I was expecting something funnier and more outrageous I guess, but actually the more adult tone is what makes the movie stand out. It isn’t a parody, or big budget B-Movie like Independence Day. It’s a gorgeous, well constructed, and acted, western, that just happens to have aliens in it.

The supporting cast are fantastic too. I absolutely loved everything Paul Dano done around this time period, Sam Rockwell has always been a favourite, Olive Wilde is great, Clancy Brown excels in the preacher role, and I always add an extra star when I see Walton Goggings.

The effects look cool. The cinematography should have been my first hint that this was never meant to be seen as a B-Movie. The film had that steady western pace which I always like, and the script was pretty tight considering it had like eighteen writers––or something like that. The ending did turn into the kind of action I thought i’d see through-out, but i’m glad director Jon Favreau held off as long as he did.

So while it’s not Unforgiven, it definitely isn’t Wild Wild West. Cowboy & Aliens is its own unique thing which I hadn’t really seen before, and haven’t seen since––other than possibly the amazing Prey. The title fooled me once, but now I know what type of movie it is I was able to enjoy it a lot more. Like I said, I never disliked it, I was always somewhat of a fan, but with more mature eyes now I can fully appreciate what I was given. Cowboys & Aliens if definitely worth a watch, especially if you weren’t sure about it fifteen years back.