The title says it all: The movie’s got cowboys and it’s got aliens, and there’s plenty of shooting when they clash. And, in the end, Cowboys & Aliens proves an enjoyable and entertaining high- concept romp that successfully meshes the science-fiction and Western genres, which is no mean feat.
These days, it’s far easier to make a convincing sci-fi movie than it is to make a convincing Western, and that’s no lie. As he displayed with the first Iron Man (2008) — more so than the second — director Jon Favreau can handle spectacle with an intelligent flair. He keeps the momentum moving forward, story unfolding in interesting ways, with a sly humor that is well- mined by its players.
Chief among them are Daniel Craig as outlaw Jake Lonergan and Harrison Ford as cattle baron Woodrow Dolarhyde, residents of a small town in the Arizona territory who form an uneasy alliance after extraterrestrial varmints abduct a number of townsfolk.
There are some great staredowns between Craig and Ford (who not so long ago might well have played Craig’s role), and the two men look right at home in the saddle. They’re playing it straight but they’re also having fun with their roles.
There are six credited screenwriters, but for once (see The Smurfs, below), the film doesn’t necessarily feel as if it was created by committee. Among the producers (16 in all!), the film’s pedigree is further enhanced by producers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard and executive producer Steven Spielberg. (Favreau reaps an executive-producer credit, as well.)
A hale and hearty supporting cast includes Sam Rockwell, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine, Clancy Brown, Adam Beach, David O’Hara and Walton Goggins, each one having a moment or two to shine (and one or two getting “shined,” of course). Flavor-of-the-Month Olivia Wilde plays the principal female character here, and although she’s easy on the eyes — and remarkably unblemished after numerous altercations — Wilde would be more at home in a salon instead of a saloon.
Only at the end, in which there’s perhaps too much bang for the buck, does the film’s focus grow a little shaky, but it cannot be said that Cowboys & Aliens skimps on cowboys or aliens or action, and it’s certainly got the right attitude: Gritty and gutsy.
With its onslaught of CGI imagery, slapstick shenanigans and incessant product placement, The Smurfs is a summer bummer of the first — and worst — order.
Less a production than a product, this big- screen adaptation of the popular ’80s Saturday-morning cartoon — which was itself hardly a paragon of animation or children’s programming, but which proved a merchandising bonanza — is strictly kiddie fare, created by people who think (mistakenly) they know what kids will groove to. Well, if kids want to be bored, then this is the movie for them.
Having traveled through a dimensional portal with their enemy Gargamel (Hank Azaria) in hot pursuit, six of the Smurfs wind up in midtown Manhattan, where they (and the audience) take in the sights and then wind up in the company of an ambitious cosmetics executive (Neil Patrick Harris) and his pregnant wife (Jayma Mays). Other than those two, and Gargamel of course, the Smurfs don’t interact much with the other human characters.
Not that it matters much, as the novelty of having the Smurfs in New York City wears out very quickly. As for the product placement, which includes at least one — Guitar Hero — that’s currently on hiatus, with a story as thin as this you’ve got to fill the screen with something, and Smurfs alone won’t do it.
Neither the Smurfs or the human characters are of much interest, despite Azaria’s shameless mugging. Somehow, it took four screenwriters to concoct a storyline that would barely pass muster as a failed sitcom pilot, which this often feels like — only in this case it’s been stretched, agonizingly so, to feature length. The Smurfs runs under 90 minutes yet feels so much longer. If the intended audience is small children, it’s entirely likely that most of them — the ones still awake, that is — will be restless before too long.
Director Raja Gosnell got lucky stretching a Saturday-morning cartoon with Scooby-Doo (2002), but his luck ran out with the 2004 sequel. His luck hasn’t changed. Gosnell made his directorial debut with Home Alone 3 (1997) — about which no more (or less) need be said, and his most recent film before this was Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008), which was a dog, in more ways than one. At best forgettable, The Smurfs is a smurfing waste of smurfing time.
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