A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys and natives are all that stand in their way.
COWBOYS & ALIENS was originally pitched to studio’s back in 1997 by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg and went into development, a bunch of roadblocks got in the way and the film never got off the ground, then in 2006 a 100 page graphic novel was released by Platinum Studios written by Fred Van Lente and Andrew Foley. This time around production went into full swing and in 2008, Robert Downey Jr was actually in negotiations to play the lead but then Sherlock Holmes came knocking and Daniel Craig stepped in as the wanted outlaw Jake Lonergan from there the cast lined up to also include Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and Sam Rockwell.
I’ve never been a huge fan of Westerns, the only one that springs to mind that I really enjoyed was back in 1995 with ‘The Quick and the Dead’ but after seeing COWBOYS & ALIENS I think that might have just changed my mind, I suppose this film is different to your typical Cowboy film with the whole alien’s storyline but even still it felt incredibly old school, even down to the way they filmed it. COWBOYS & ALIENS has a bit of everything, humour, love and plenty of action..
Daniel Craig (Bond) plays the lead extremely well, he does crack on a different accent to what we are used to but he seems to pull it off fairly well and I’ve always been a pretty big fan of his work so he failed to disappoint. Olivia Wilde (Tron Legacy) who to me personally just oozes sex appeal, in a way was not really needed in this film I suppose I just wanted more from her character and felt it was a bit all over the show but she still plays a fairly pivotal role and I would be happy to watch her in anything. Harrison Ford (Morning Glory) was by far the stand out, in what I feel is his best role in quite some time he really cranked it up and nailed the role of Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde, if you have been disappointed in him of late, by far this film will change your mind. Performance wise I really can’t fault anyone obviously Director Jon Favreau really put some thought into his casting.
Overall COWBOYS & ALIENS is a lot of fun, seeing native americans attack Aliens with Bows and Arrows is always amusing in my books and just the movie as a whole its great watch, I really do hope a sequel is in the works because I will be lining up to see it.
COWBOYS & ALIENS is in Cinemas Now and I give this film 4 out of 5 stars.