COWBOYS & ALIENS.

Warning: This review has major spoilers. I try not to do that, but I couldn't help it for this one.

-----------------------

Yes, there are cowboys. Yes, there are aliens. But how well do they play together? We're introduced to Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a former outlaw who can't remember anything--including his name. And he has a strange metal device attached to his wrist. He soon stumbles into a nearby town that's run with an iron fist by Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his good-for-nothing son, Percy (Paul Dano). He meets some of the other inhabitants, including Doc (Sam Rockwell), Meacham (Clancy Brown), Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine), and the sheriff's son, Emmett (Noah Ringer). He also runs into a mysterious young woman named Ella (Olivia Wilde) who is very interested in Jake's past. But just when things are rough enough as it is, them darn aliens have to show up and make things even more complicated by kidnapping half the town. Now those left are forced to team up and find the alien base so they can rescue their loved ones. But this is still the old west, so they also have outlaws and Indians to deal with, too.

When I first saw the trailer, I was surprised at how serious the movie seemed to be taking itself. You'd think a movie with such a title would appear to be a lot campier. But I (and others) held hope that maybe the trailer was a bit off and figured it would still be campier in the film. However, while there are a few goofy moments... the movie plays pretty straight faced. And maybe to its detriment, that makes it come off like two different movies shoved together.

On the one hand we have a pretty solid western. An outlaw with amnesia wakes up in the desert, strolls into town, and takes care of a thing or two before getting shown for who he is. They have to deal with the tyrannical ruling of the man who keeps the town alive and, thus, must put up with his son. Eventually it becomes an adventure film and they must face other outlaws and angry Indians along the way. I'm not a huge fan of the genre, but I did like the normal aspect of this film quite a bit.

On the other hand, you have War of the Worlds mixed with Battlefield Earth. Aliens invade, take people prisoner to study them, and their reason for being here in the first place... is that they want gold. Yes, that's right. Gold. But you also have a decent alien abduction story with a man who was taken along with his lover, accidentally gets a super-weapon attached to his arm, escapes, and helps fight back and destroy the invaders. It's actually not quite as strong as the western element, and there are parts of it that don't feel like they meld well.

Fortunately, everybody seems to be having a good time in the film. Well, Daniel Craig is relatively stoic as always, but everybody else seems to be having a good time. Harrison Ford is really good as the gruff tyrant-esque businessman/cowboy. My only real complaint about him is that his character arc has a notch missing somewhere in the middle. He starts as... not a good person. By the end, he's good. But there's somewhere in the middle when this transition starts that feels as if it missed a beat, some drastic moment that begins his change (besides his son being taken). And speaking of Paul Dano, he was hilarious in this movie. He was probably my favorite part, at least his interactions with Daniel Craig, and it's sad that he's not in it a whole lot. Though Sam Rockwell is pretty good, too. The one that kinda bugged me the most was Olivia Wilde. As soon as she was introduced, I felt she was out of place. And then I was like "she's an alien," because she--well--looked like one. Her head was bulbous in this movie. And what do you know...

I think the best thing I can say about this movie is that I don't feel like I wasted my time or money. I was entertained while watching it (though it is a tad bit too long). But as others have said, there's not a whole lot that's very memorable about it. I think that's in large part due to how serious it took itself. It didn't allow for camp or cheesy one-liners or epic dialogue. Had it loosened up a bit, I think it could have been a lot more than what we got. But still, it was entertaining enough.


Stop Saying OK! OK.

IRON MAN 2.

It's here. The first big anticipated film of the year is here. The original was a big surprise when it came out. This sequel has been anticipated (as already stated) ever since. But the original weren't without its issues. My own personal problems were the character of Pepper Potts (I just didn't like how she was written), as well as the climax feeling, well, anti-climactic. So did the sequel fix these issues?

The story follows Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) after having announced himself to the world as Iron Man. The government wants his armor, seeing it as a weapon that belongs to "the people." Tony, of course, refuses. They eventually have to bring in his best friend, Lt. Col. James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), to try and talk some sense in to him. Meanwhile, a man named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), the son of a Russian scientist, wants to take revenge on Stark. He builds an outfit to take on Iron Man, utilizing lightning whips. And then there's Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a weapons' specialist out to commercialize the Iron Man technology for the U.S. Military, and he ends up taking on Vanko as help. The film also stars Scarlett Johansson as a woman who might know more than she seems, working with Stark. And, of course, there is the return of Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

First off, the trailer is slightly misleading. It portrays Vanko as the primary villain, and I don't think that's true. Yes, he's a main villain, but the trailers hardly even show Sam Rockwell. Justin Hammer is a huge part of the movie, and really none of the plot could happen without him. But I suppose when you have the option of showcasing Mickey Rourke with lightning whips or the powerless love child of Edward Norton and Dana Carvey, I'd go with the former, too.

So how are the villains in this movie? They're pretty good. Vanko only wears his ridiculous costume for the racing scene as shown in the trailers, but comes up with something a bit more sophisticated (?) for the finale (which I'll get to later). Unfortunately, those are his only two fighting scenes. Hammer, on the other hand, is in the film constantly, either stumbling over his words trying to outwit Stark or trying to play the impressive businessman to Vanko. And he is a good villain, despite not really ever getting his own hands dirty.

And how about the good guys? RDJ is still hilarious as Tony Stark and badass as Iron Man. Don Cheadle steps in to replace Terrence Howard, and I'm not sure which I like better. I think Cheadle, overall. Howard was able to add some humor to the character, while Cheadle pretty much plays him straight, at least up until the third act. But I think Cheadle pulled off the straight-man aspect of the character better than Howard, seeming more serious and believable as a military man. And then there's Pepper Potts. I actually liked her in this movie, especially since they didn't have her yelling secret plans to overthrow the enemy while the enemy was right there like in the first movie. So yeah, she was much improved over the first movie. Oh, and... uh... Scarlett was hot (and awesome). And hot.

So what were some of the negatives, you might ask? Well, first, I don't think there was nearly enough action. There are really only three major action sequences in the movie, and only two of them serious. There's the race car fight where Vanko first shows his abilities. The fight itself occurs at the end of the first act and, depsite Vanko slicing cars in half and Stark using his awesome suitcase armor, the fight is relatively short--maybe only 1 or 2 minutes once Stark actually gets his armor on. Then there's a not-so-serious fight that introduces War Machine, which is pretty fun. And then...

...then there's the climax. As a whole, the climax is awesome. There's Scarlett Johansson kicking ass. There's Iron Man kicking ass. There's War Machine kicking ass. There's explosions, lasers, flying, dodging, martial arts, and even a bit of humor... everything. But then there's Vanko. What I was worried about was a fight like the first movie's, where Iron Man goes up against the big bad guy and it ends up only lasting a couple minutes, as Iron Man figures out some big explosion-type deal that can take him down. So how is it this time? It lasts even less time than the one in the first movie. I suppose I shouldn't be complaining, as the entire climax up to that point has already lasted a long time. But I figured all that would be just the warm-up battle to prepare for the Final Boss, as it were. At least in the original, they fly around, shoot at each other, throw some punches... in this one, it literally lasts only a minute or two, mostly of Vanko holding on to Iron Man and War Machine with his lightning whips and tossing them about. How awesome would a midair lightning whip/hand blasts battle have been? Maybe add some rain... stylish! But oh well. Everything leading up to it rocked pretty hardcore to at least make up for it to a degree.

Overall, the movie was really good. I wasn't even going to comment on the visuals, as they are amazingly well done. The action that was there was done very well, but I think there could have been a little more there. With so little action, everything else in between seemed to drag at times. I was about to get annoyed right before the racing scene came up. Yeah, he's in his suit more, but just wearing the suit does not Iron Man make. Everything else was amazing. So was it worse than, as good as, or better than the original? I certainly don't think it was worse than. I'm actually tempted to say it was even better than the original in some cases, while in others it was just as good as. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you liked the original, you will definitely like this one, possibly even more. It had a couple issues, but then again, so did the first. Has summer officially started, then? Hell yeah, baby.


A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. Wait for the scene after the credits. On top of the million Avengers nods this movie throws at you, there's one after the credits that's pretty cool).

FROST/NIXON.

Irrelevant, but you know it’s sad when you go to buy your ticket, and the guy behind the counter goes “Hey, you got a haircut!” Anyway, on to the movie. As you all know, this movie tells the story of television celebrity David Frost (Michael Sheen), who gets a sudden urge to interview Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) soon after the Watergate Scandal. Also involved are Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, and Toby Jones.

As you could probably gather from my pretty short synopsis, I don’t have much to say about the film. It’s kind of aggravating, really. Yes, the acting was great (with the exception of poor Toby Jones, who nearly made me want to laugh at his really forced tough-guy New York accent. Though I guess it’s more laughable when you realize this is the same guy who voiced Dobby the House Elf in Harry Potter). I also loved the symbolism with the shoes throughout the film.

But I really don’t have any overarching negative things to say about the film. I was never bored during its 2-hour time frame. It kept my attention, and I really enjoyed the film. If it were anything, it would be the depiction of Nixon. For a guy frequently described as quiet and to himself and who is horrible at small talk, the only time he ever felt awkward doing any small talk was during the scene it’s actually mentioned in the film. Before that, after that, he seemed perfectly capable of and not awkward at all about chit chatting with anybody.

And in the end, the movie was just, overall, too safe. Ron Howard made a rather predictable film. And I don’t mean that in the sense we all know what happens in the end (the boat sinks! Wait…). But I mean it in that even before I went in, I knew he was going to open it up with audio and/or video of real footage from Nixon and use that every now and then through the film. And the film didn’t make the characters/people anything more than they are set up to be: a naive man who gets some balls and overcomes his opponent (Frost) or a troubled man who comes to terms with what he did (Nixon). Everything was rather straight forward in its presentation, and there wasn’t really anything that made me go “Oh, wow, look at how he did that/portrayed that.” So while I really enjoyed the film as a whole (though they could have shown more of the actual interview stuff, in my opinion), it was no major stride forward in political biopics. But it wasn’t a step back, either. I’d recommend it.

A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. This was a very difficult score to give. I think I really only gave it this score because of the superb acting. Otherwise, it would have gotten a very strong McLovin. So this is a weak 'Whoa', but a 'Whoa', nonetheless.)