Jan 3: Cowboys & Aliens

"A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys and natives are all that stand in their way."

   Cowboys & Aliens is pretty much exactly that, and only that. There really is no plot and not a whole lot going on except for the fact that gunslingers are really fighting off a bunch of steroid-pumping E.T's.

   Daniel Craig plays the main "cowboy", and he plays it so boring and stoic that I didn't really care about him. He uses the same old American accent he uses in all of his other movies, Road to Perdition, Munich, etc. and it leads me to assume that he thinks we all speak the same. I guess I can't hold that against him because every British accent I attempt is just "ello guvna". But still... he gets paid millions of dollars and a trip to McDonald's breaks bank for me.

Dammit, Bond, stop being an ass.

   One thing the movie has going for it, is that the special effects are very good. A lot of cool, pretty explosions and some decent looking alien beefcakes run rampart throughout. The action scenes are filmed fairly well, even though you question the actual material itself. A bunch of Apaches fighting aliens with spears and hatchets? And winning? It is all absolutely ridiculous.

   The actors are cardboard, reciting their lines with no emotion. Harrison Ford looks old and his grumpy attitude is more annoying than anything. It just makes you miss the days of him killing Nazis and fearing snakes, and the sound of his whip crackling in the air. Olivia Wilde, the "love" interest, is also straight faced and boring. Most people know her as the hot actress from House, but in Cowboys & Aliens, she's rather plain looking and her co-star is her forehead, which tends to shine in its supporting role.

Her forehead refused to comment.

   One would think that the title alone would draw massive crowds to the box office, but that was not the case, and I now see why. Sure the title is badass because it is where you can imagine James Bond and Indiana Jones teaming up to fight aliens, but this "close encounter" turned into one mess of a film. Here's to looking forward to next year's follow-up, Gran Torino 2: Space Jam Invaders, starring the only cowboy in town, Mr. Eastwood himself.

Sight: Pretty cool special effects and WWF aliens

Sound: Nothing really memorable here, and the sound effects seem to be from 1940

Skill: Boring and stale acting all around, not a single performance memorable

Script: Just like the acting- absolutely boring and not much of a plot at all

Score: 5.9/10

Best Quote:

Meacham: "Don't yank on it, it's not your pecker" (as he's teaching someone how to shoot)