It has been ten years since the release of Cowboys & Aliens, which at the time was one of the most hotly anticipated films of summer 2011 and had thunderous reactions at Comic-Con in 20. And Henry Gregson William’s rousing score is evocative of some of the classic western scores from Elmer Bernstein.Īnd thankfully the producers (including Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer) have resisted the temptation to produce a 3D version.Cowboys & Aliens creator Scott Mitchell Rosenberg says that it was studio politics that prevented a sequel from happening. Matthew Libatique’s cinematography makes excellent use of the New Mexico locations to add authenticity. The special effects are quite good, and the CGI created slimy aliens owe a debt to the creatures createby H R Giger for Ridley Scott’s classic Alien. He directs the material with a sense of fun, and there are some wonderful in-jokes and one-liners sprinkled throughout.Ĭowboys & Aliens is great fun, and crowd-pleasing stuff which should appeal to fans of both genres. With films like Iron Man to his credit, Jon Favreau has proven himself a dab hand at special effects laden films, and he handles the visuals superbly. Olivia Wilde adds a touch of beauty to this masculine genre with her role as Ellie, a mysterious woman who seems to know more about these extraterrestrial visitors than she is admitting. Sam Rockwell plays the milquetoast saloon keeper who gains his courage during the confrontation with the aliens. Craig has a strong, rugged presence that is suited to the physical demands of his role as the taciturn villain who rises to heroic status. Nonetheless Ford, typically humourless, grizzled and sporting uncharacteristic stubble, still brings plenty of authority and his formidable screen reputation to his role as the tough cattle baron. Performances are uniformly good, and they play the essentially preposterous material straight.įord is getting a bit too old to play the action hero so its left up to Daniel Craig to do most of the heavy lifting in the action sequences. The characters are archetypes of the genre, but they are brought to life by the solid cast.
#Cowboys and aliens 2 full
They uncover a spacecraft full of aliens that are mining gold in them there hills and experimenting on their human prisoners. Lonergan and tyrannical cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) are forced to bury their mutual dislike and distrust to organise a posse and track down these alien attackers. Several of the townsfolk are snatched up by the machines and whisked away, and this is when the film moves into sci-fi territory. But before he can be handed over to the federal authorities, the town is suddenly attacked by strange flying machines. He discovers that his name is Jake Lonergan and that he is wanted for robbery.
When he arrives in the nearby town of Absolution, he is arrested by the sheriff (Keith Carradine) after a run in with the local bully Percy (Paul Dano). He also has a mysterious metallic bracelet around his wrist, which turns out to be a powerful alien ray gun. Daniel Craig plays an outlaw who wakes up in the middle of nowhere with no memory of how he came to be there. The setting is Arizona, 1875 and the film starts like a traditional western with a stranger wandering into town. Normally when so many writers have a hand in writing the result is a disjointed mess but surprisingly enough here it seems to work well. No less than six writers have worked on the script, including Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (the recent Star Trek reboot, etc) Damon Lindelof (Lost, etc) Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Iron Man, etc), who have mainly worked in the sci-fi genre and Steve Oedekerk, who is better known for comedies like Ace Ventura, etc. The film is based on the graphic novel written by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg, and the script has been circulating around Hollywood for some years trying to find a producer canny enough to tackle it.