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Cowboys and Aliens

I liked it for the most part as it had the authentic feel of a Western, it’s just a few elements that poked some air out of the ride.

Character

In the the setup Daniel Craig sticking up for justice was an effective way to create empathy for him. Yet by the middle of the movie or earlier, there was that flashback with his woman (wife?) where she called him a thief and murderer in relation to his acquisition of the gold. There went my empathy! I couldn’t tell if the woman had the facts wrong, if Craig had merely found the gold, but it sure seemed like he was a murderer. That’s too big a crime to redeem, in other movies a murderer trying to do good gave up his life at the end to redeem his soul.

Premise

The aliens were too out there. Considering the lovely Olivia Wilde was a different alien race, it would have been easier on the mind to see the main aliens in a form closer to humans. Still evil and all, just visually easier to digest.

Theme

The theme was redemption and the key characters did something to achieve it. Harrison Ford did not. He went with the posse to search for his son and tolerated Daniel Craig only because of Craig’s alien weapon. Then near the end Ford’s Indian employee told the story of how Ford took him in as a child…and Ford became a softie from then on. That was weak.

I would have liked to see him remain as tough and ruthless as in the beginning and then do one thing for Craig or the posse to redeem himself.

Little things

- Daniel Craig jumping off his horse and onto the alien ship was cartoonish, yet luckily was the only such moment in the movie.

- When Act II started and Craig shot down an alien ship, it was silly that no one entered it to examine it. They all approached it and then were distracted and the story forgot it. It would have been cool had, say, the Ford character, found another weapon in there and he and Craig would have fought before Craig destroyed the other weapon.

- The steam boat 500 miles from water that could carry it. Why did the aliens go so far into the mainstream where they would be spotted and invoke a response from the entire US military? Why and how did they bring the boat so far inland? What happened to all the people on the boat?

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