Cowboys & Aliens Review

I remember earlier in the year when I saw my first trailer for Cowboys & Aliens.  It looked like my perfect summertime movie – action, special effects, explosions, a comic book tie-in, and big name stars.  I know which movies fall in my wheelhouse and first impression was Cowboys & Aliens fit the bill.  My coworkers, however, had the nerve to scoff at me when I shared my excitement over wanting to see it.  Sadly when it comes to my movie preferences this isn’t the first time that’s happened.

It’s a good thing I stick to my guns regarding movies, because Cowboys & Aliens did its job…which was keeping me entertained.  Daniel Craig played a believable cowboy-with-an-erased memory.  Harrison Ford played a badass-with-a-heart-of-gold.  And Olivia Wilde is always believable as token-hot-girl.

The movie has the audience following Daniel Craig’s character as he wakes up in the middle of nowhere and can’t remember how he got there.  All he has is a black and white photo of a woman and an odd bracelet on his wrist.

I was happy that the mystery of what the alien invaders looked like was not kept a secret to the audience for much of the movie, ala Cloverfield.  We get to see what an alien looks like pretty early on in the film. There is also a “shocking surprise” in the movie that wasn’t much of a surprise to me.  If you think about it it’s pretty obvious, but for the sake of those who have not seen the movie yet I won’t spoil it.

The final battle between the Cowboys and the Aliens ate up a pretty large chunk of the final act.  It wasn’t “final battle in Transformers 2 & 3″ long, but still long nonetheless.

In my closing thoughts, Cowboys & Aliens reminded me a lot of the third Back to the Future.  Both took place in the wild wild West.  Back to the Future deals with wacky time travel, and Cowboys & Aliens deals with the wacky notion of gun-toting Cowboys and spear-wielding Indians being able to hold their own against technologically-advanced Aliens.  For some this does not sound appealing at all.  For others like myself, we know to turn our brains off and enjoy the show.  Which category do you fall in?

Timdogg

#ComicBookChronicles @CBChron founder. Editor-in-Chief of @thekliqnation. Comic book reviewer, podcaster #RABBLERABBLE