Cowboys and Aliens

Went to see Cowboys and Aliens today. The title of the film is wrong. It should really be Cowboys vs Aliens. But that wouldn’t have sounded half as cool. The first 20 minutes of the film are pure western, with a lone gunslinger finding his way into a town out way out west and bringing trouble with him. Then things take a more other-worldly turn when the aliens turn up. I’m not giving much away when I tell you that these ones are much, much nastier than the ones in Super 8 (although they look broadly similar). The action is well done and the acting is great, particularly Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, who gets the lion’s share of the best lines.

Go see it.

Oh, and if it seems as if I like every film I see, here are a couple I think you should avoid. I’ve sat through these films on airplanes, just so you don’t have to.

The Other Guys. This is awful. I watched it all the way through waiting for something nice or amusing to happen. Nothing did. The lead characters are pretty unpleasant, the plot is done by numbers and the whole thing just reeks.

The Green Hornet. Cameron Diaz has been in some stinkers, and this is one of them. A bad reworking of an un-remarkable “super” hero. No characters you can really warm to and a plot twist that might as well have been written in the sky in large letters.