So my wife and I finally watched Cowboys & Aliens last night. This was one film we debated about seeing at the cinema but eventually ended up not going, and after watching it at home courtesy of Lovefilm I’m very glad we didn’t!
Okay so it isn’t the worst film ever, not by a long shot, but with a cast including Daniel Craig (love him as Bond) and Harrison Ford (just a legend) I think it’s fair to expect a better-than-average movie as a result, which this just wasn’t. Firstly it feels very long for a movie of its genre, even if at 119 minutes it still comes in under the 2 hour mark. There’s just two many points in the film where you’re sitting there waiting for the next scene, knowing that what you’re watching is just padding out the plot with largely redundant and pretty hollow character development.
The special effects are pretty good, but these days that’s just to be expected and with a reported budget of over $160 million you would want the FX to be spot on. Daniel Craig’s performance was good but you got the impression he was just coasting through, much as Harrison Ford was, it felt like they were just there for the paycheck and nothing else.
Overall rating, a mediocre 4/10, I probably wouldn’t sit through it again unless the alternatives were even worse (and not watching anything probably isn’t far off being better).
