Cowboys and Aliens

Right, lets look at this like I'm sure the studio executives did.  Okay, we have Indiana Jones plus James Bond, in a Western, with aliens.  Westerns are kind of sexy again, comic book/graphic novel adaptations put bums on seats, Daniel Craig makes most women go a little bit weak and a recent blockbuster shows Harrison Ford mixing it with aliens (sorry, interdimensional beings, my bad Mr. Lucas) makes big bucks.  Hey, brain wave...lets get the guys that wrote Transformers and the man that directed Iron Man to work on this too and we cant lose! Can we??  Em, I am afraid to say fellas that yes, you certainly can.  Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that Cowboys and Aliens is a dead loss of a film because it certainly isnt but it isnt far away from being a total disaster. Cowboys and Aliens just does not work the way it should and the main contributing factor to this could be the genre that its pitching itself as.  Sci fi Westerns can work, just look at Outland or The Good, the Bad and the Weird, two very good and very enjoyable films, albeit for totally different reasons.  But sci fi Westerns also have a very strong habit of not working, just look at Jonah Hex, or the Wild Wild West, both thoroughly risable films.  If ever there was a genre hybrid that truly defined the phrase "Hit and Miss", the sci fi western is it.  Cowboys and Aliens clocks in as a miss but it could have been so much more.

Daniel Craig wakes up in the desert a few miles outside the backwater town of Absolution.  He is injured and suffering from amnesia, not knowing who he is, where he is or how he got there.  Strapped to his left arm is a strange manacle that he can't remove and in the dirt beside him is a faded picture of a beautiful woman.  Craig's loner finds shelter with Absolution's preacher but brings attention to himself by breaking up the rowdy carousing of Percy Dolarhyde, the son of Woodrow Dolarhyde, a Civil War veteran and powerful cattle barren.  He is recognised by the town Sherrif as Jake Lonergan, a man wanted for murder.  As the stage coach comes to take Lonergan away strange lights fill the sky around Absolution and the town's folk start disappearing.  Could Lonergan and that strange metal manacle on his wrist be the answer?

Not a bad set up, it must be said, but nothing terribly taxing either and that seems to be the biggest problem with Cowboys and Aliens (C&A from now on), it is a film built on stereotypes, on cliches and tired old recipes that makes C&A seem stale from very early on.  There is very little fresh or new in this film but in a season drenched with sfx superhero movies it would be very hard to give us something that we havent seen before.  So, instead, we are given the best bits of several crowd pleasing movies, polished up and repackaged as C&A.  Some scenes seem so familiar you'll find it hard to tell which film you are actually watching (ID4 gets a serious namecheck about midway through). This was the major stubbling block for me, C&A doesnt really try to give us anything that we havent seen before, it doesnt try to freshen things up and unfortunately this comes across as laziness on the film makers part.  Another of the faults in C&A is the complete lack of urgency, things just seem to happen in the film as it plods along almost aimlessly.  The action set pieces dont flow and as the film progresses you can't help the growing feeling that you dont care about any of these characters, whether they live or die.  Nothing gels between the characters, no sense of understanding or sympathy and the attempt at a love story between Oliveia Wildes saloon girl Ella and Craig's Lonergan is just ridiculous as neither actor tries to make it believeable.  Harrison Ford is the only one that can come out with any emotional credibilty, giving his character of Dolarhyde a few layers, slowly revealing them on the hunt for the missing town's folk.  Sam Rockwell brings much needed humour to the film as the put upon barkeep/doctor but unfortunately there are far too many unintentional laughs in the film as well, laid squarely at the door of the stupid looking CGI aliens.  As for Craig, he plays the part well, channelling Eastwood's Man With No Name and Dirty Harry in equal measure.  He does exactly what it says on the tin, silent and strong and resilient  but again, you dont really feel any connection to him, you feel no real reason to either cheer for him or against him. 

Hey, hold on, wait, this is cowboys fighting aliens, this is a popcorn movie, right?  Turn your brain off and watch it for Gods sake.  Enjoy it!!  But that is the problem, there isnt a whole lot to enjoy in C&A, the bangs aren't really big enough and they come far to far apart so there is no rhythm or flow and moreso, there is very little to tickle your funny bone.  Jon Favreau, the director of the two Iron Man films so far, seems to have lost the comic touch that served him so well with the Downey Jnr adventures.  Infact, the film starts so darkly that you wonder is there going to be any humour in this film at all and C&A seems all the more stronger for that as Craig is this badass out to find out what the hell has happened to him.  This start is so strong in fact that you kind of feel let down as the aliens start marauding around the countryside and it becomes a Searchers-lite rescue movie instead of a revenge film.  The tone of the film changes throughout, is it a dark, bruising redemption story or an adventure film?  It doesnt seem to know itself and makes the cardinal mistake of trying to be both.  I think there could be a good reason for that though asthe film has five accredited writers. Five, it took five men to write this.  That is never a good sign, the script seems to have been passed around more times than the peace pipe and there is a little bit of every version in there. Yet, if C&A hadnt have tried to mix several tones and idea's then it would have been a good 40 mins shorter and it's no epic as it stands.  Long sections of C&A seem strained and put in place just to fill up running time.  Not a whole lot happens and when it does it happens way too quick and then underwhelms because we really want to see more, more flare, more action, more fun really.  It is a film that you can have no fun with and that is really, really sad.

Now, as I said at the start, this film is not a total disaster.  One of the great things about C&A is the darkness, the truly dark and unsettling moments of brutal bloodletting and invasive alien procedures.  The use of a strangely placed river boat provides a great moment in the film, the dark shadows and crackling firelight building a great atmosphere as we are introduced to the alien bad guys.  The cast as a whole are really strong, the supporting members especially.  Clancy Brown, Sam Rockwell, Keith Caradine and Adam Beach really do steal the show, Rockwell in particular but unfortunately Olivia Wilde seems strangely misplaced and out of tune with the rest of the cast but, as we find out, there could be a very good reason for this sense of isolation.  There is also a lot in the trailers that didnt make it into the movie so I am guessing that somwhere in the not too distant future we'll see a directors cut that might reshape things and add a little more definition that C&A does need.

Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity. It is a heavy lug of a film that we as the viewer have to carry around instead of it carrying us from set piece to set piece.  This also has to go down as evidence to support the theory that Harrison Ford has really pissed off some powerful career deity as he stars in another clunking, borderline boring film.

 6/10

Super 8

I am one of those shameless Lost devotees who never missed an episode and I am also a Spielberg cinephile so when JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg decided to join forces you can imagine the tingling sensation I got all over.  With the cryptic advertising campaign and the build up to Super 8 only heightening my expectations it was with great trepidation that I went to go see Super 8.  I say trepidation as I didnt want to go expecting a masterpiece and come out disappointed, I am still licking my wounds after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (not that I ever thought it would be a masterpiece but bloody hell it could have tried a bit harder).  Anyway, lights go down, the kid on the bike goes past the moon, the bad robot races around the screen and so starts Super 8, with an ominous Accidnet Free Zone sign being changed to read 1 day accident free.  Would Super 8 be everything I hoped it would be...

 

Joe Lamb is a 12-year old boy living in a sleepy Ohio town, mourning the recent death of his mother.  While helping his friends make a Super 8 zombie movie they inadvertently film a catastrophic train derailment.  Soon things start to go haywire around town and the military move in as people and things start disappearing mysteriously.  As Joe and his friend Charles develop their footage they realise that their little town is in great danger.

Right, first things first, Super 8 is a type of film that has not been made, or at least made well, in a very long time as it is a blockbuster with a lot of heart. Like the films it takes inspiration from, namely ET, The Goonies and Stand By Me, this film is all about a group of pre-teen kids that are trying to come to terms with love and life and letting go. It is so refreshing to see a summer blockbuster where the special effects largely take the back seat and it is this that makes Super 8 a powerful little film.  Even though it is a big budget Hollywood film it has all the feel and vibe of an independent film as so much time is spent on the little things, the small details and the intricate relationships between the bunch of kids and what makes them tick.  Like The Goonies and the Explorers and ET, this film is only concerned with the kids.  The adults take a backseat, all except Kyle Chandler who plays Joe's dad Jackson.  Like Spielberg before him, Abram focuses on the father/son dynamic, the fear a recently widowed father has of a son he doesnt really understand and the heartache a child has by not being able to speak to his father.  This delicate balance is handled so well but so simply it makes you wonder why it isnt done this well in other films.  Another of the really well judged elements of Super 8 was the decision to set it in the 70's.  It settled on an era before technology really took hold.  There were no computers, no mobile phones, no video cameras.  The world was changing, America was only coming to terms with the consequences of Vietnam and the sacrafice a generation of young men made, of an innocence lost.  Super 8 adopts the 1970's feel so well that would be forgiven for thinking that it was made in the 1970's and again this is truly wonderful as films made in the 1970's and the 1980's couldnt rely on special effects like films of today can.  Those magical coming of age adventure films of 25 years ago had to rely on character and emotion and not a computer generated nasty to titilate the audience but not engage them. Again, a triumph of decision making.

Like Spielberg with Jaws, Abrams decides to keep the audience fed with bare glimpses of the monster, with sounds and shadows and it is such a good move for, as the film builds, you palpably fear what the hell this beast is that these kids are going to have to fight.  Unfortunately the build up doesnt get the pay off it deserves in the final act as Abrams probably spent too much effort building the monster for the audience.  There is also a very jarring tonal shift as the final third of the film unfolds but Abrams builds it like a little mini film in itself so it doesnt feel wrong, it just feels like a step to the side instead of a step forward.

There is very little ordinary about this film but there is also very little truly original about it as well, everything you see in it you have seen somewhere else in a lot of films from the 1980's especially.  It is exceptionally well acted considering its young cast, Joel Courtney as Joe brings an innocence and a heartbreak to the character of Joe that really pulls in the audience and Ryan Lee, the train-tracked explosive obsessed best friend injects a lot of fun into the darker moments of the film.  Yes, the darker moments.  One of the problems that Abrams finds hard to correct is the tone of the film as it nears its conclusion for, while Super 8 charms the audience it also holds no fear it actually frightening you.  This in itself is not a bad thing but so much time is spent with the kids and setting them up and getting to love them that the darker moments can jar the viewer. This is only a minor quibble though as Super 8 is a really wonderful and refreshing film that may just make you fall back in love with the cinema.

To answer my question at the start, would this be everything I hoped it would be?  Yes it surely was.  This film is the perfect antidote to the summer FX overload, sweet, tender and dark in places but magical and magnificent in many ways.  While it builds a little too slowly, paying a bit too much homage to the films that inspired it, Super 8 becomes it's own film and Abrams gives us everything that the man who created the conundrum Lost could give us, plenty to think about but not enough answers unfortunately.  It is a small issue though as the film itself is pure enjoyment and the unexplained why's of the film will not be too much of a an annoyance as you leave the cinema.

8/10

The Guard

My my, now here is a film that I really wanted to love but like a lot of love affairs, it just didnt work out.  I think that could have been a big part of my viewing experience, I had heard so much about this film, so many positives that it was supposed to be the perfect Irish comedy.  As a comedy it works well, it has plenty of laughs but, to modify an old saying, it is less than the sum of it's parts.  Brendan Gleeson has created one of the best characters he has ever portrayed in Sgt Gerry Boyle but he doesnt work in this film.  Boyle is a very apathetic character, who doesnt care too much about his job, about the law or the community he is charged with keeping safe.  He is lonely, visiting his dying mother in a nursing home, hiring hookers, drinking on duty and taking drugs like some people take fag breaks in work, his languid, lazy style making him seem like an idiot but he is anything but.  It is fascinating to watch him on the screen but all the things around him dont seem to work, especially Don Cheadle's FBI agent Wendell Everett who is chasing 500 million dollars of smuggled drugs across to Galway.  Indeed, there is so much crammed into this film that it gets confusing as to what we are watching, is it a comedy, is it a western or an action film, a crime film or is it a character piece? 

Opening with a murder in a quiet Galway village, Boyle and his new partner, McBride investigate the crime until Boyle is pulled away to meet Everett, an FBI agent who needs Gardai assistance tracking a shipment of drugs he is trying capture.  Boyle recognises one of Everetts smuggling suspects as his dead John Doe.  So both men are thrown together to try solve both murder and drug trafficking case.  With the disappearance of McBride, Boyle's partner, (a bizarre and unexplained scene in the film) things take a turn for the worst for Boyle, and unfortunately for the film as well as it now descends into a hodge podge mix of buddy buddy/ fish out of water cop movie.

Writer/director John Michael McDonagh has created a wonderful character in Gerry Boyle, a great complex character that the viewer can really enjoy.  Unfortunately the relationship between him and Cheadle's black FBI agent just does not work.  While it is fractious and testy, watching them together just makes you think how much better Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin did the very same thing in A Midnight Run.  The strongest parts of this film can be found in how McDonagh has built the film, filling it with tiny but fascinating insights into the modern Ireland this story finds itself in, throwing in very well defined references to the immigrant community within Ireland and the lazy and apathetic nature to events across Ireland, as represented by Boyle, but it isnt enough to save a film that just is not as entertaining as if should have been.  Liam Cunningham, one of the finest actors we've ever produced is wasted as the clever, philosophy spouting bad guy.  Mark Strong provides some great moments as the British drug smuggler that is afraid to get his hands dirty and Pat Shortt gives a nice little cameo as an IRA member looking for his guns in the Galway bogland.  The best part of the film is the child on he bike bike that follows Boyle all over the town, dying to see some real danger.

The Guard does work, dont get me wrong but I think it tries to be a little more than it should.  It would have worked better as a charcter film, exploring this fascinating character of Gerry Boyle, with a little comedy thrown in rather than a comedy where the character of Boyle is the central character.  The Guard represents the Gardai as broadly as possible, throwing it great moments that every person in every small Irish village or largetown can identify with with their Gardai.  The strongest card it plays is its portrayal of loss and loneliness throughout each character that would be historically linked with the barren west of Ireland.  In fact there are so many great things about this film that it makes it even more galling to think that it doesnt quite gel.  The western styling is a great asset to the film and one of the most enjoyable aspects, channelling the spirt of the Spaghetti westerns and High Noon, especially in the closing scenes.  Boyle truly is the last great cowboy of the west, it just happens to be the west of Ireland as oposed to the wild west of America.

The Guard is well worth a view, if just for Gleeson's wonderful turn as Gerry Boyle but I couldnt get over the fact that I wanted it to be better.

6/10