Cowboys & Aliens (6/10)

If Harrison Ford was 20 years younger, the main role would have suited him perfect.

What Daniel Craig brought to this character was the body, the tough guy persona, and the intensity. However, I thought what was lacking was a lot of the character's personality. There was nothing to grasp on to for me as the audience.

Even worse was Olivia Wilde whose characterisation was somewhat weird and inconsistent for me. As an alien taking the form of a human, she displayed no characteristics of an alien at all. Plus there was this one scene when she shed tears while Craig's character was describing his past. I couldn't see why her character would cry but then again maybe it was Craig's fault for his weak portrayal.

Paul Dano was surprisingly effective. As was Sam Rockwell who I initially thought would be another uninteresting role like in Iron Man 2. And it was good to see Noah Ringer again as I thought he did well in The Last Airbender. And I thought Harrison Ford was the heart of the movie. His character was far more easier to identify with.

What sucked the fun out of this supposedly fun movie was the aliens. For aliens with a spaceship and advanced weaponry, they sure behaved really primitively. And thus begins the many loopholes that plagued the story from start to finish. But ultimately, for me, in a time where there were only spears and pistols, director Jon Favreau should have made the aliens more vulnerable and easier to defeat. In the final act with the all-out battle, we saw aliens jumping out of their ship to engage in hand-to-hand combat (strangely enough when they had laser wrist-guns) with the small group of humans. And we saw how difficult it was to fell the aliens even with bullets. And yet, the humans were able to hold out for as long as they did. Very questionable.

Now had the aliens been easier to kill, it would have made more sense even if they came to the battle forgetting to bring their weapons.

But was the movie entertaining? Sure, cowboys and aliens, why not - even if it was barely. But was it a worthy summer-blockbuster contender? Not at all even with the weak line-up this year.