Yesterday, Josh posted
The Hollywood Reporter's review of Jon Favreau's
Cowboys And Aliens. Now, another review has hit. This review from
Box Office Magazine is a negative review for the film. You can read excerpts from the review down below...
Cowboys & Aliens is a nearly exact description of the conflict at the heart of Jon Favreau's latest film. A better one is Cliché & Exposition.
Favreau, working from a script by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman (of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen infamy), has adapted a dubiously popular comic book into a questionably coherent blockbuster which explains its half-baked ideas more than it bothers to develop them.
Cowboys & Aliens' is twofold: why do the aliens want what they want, and why do they have to bother with humans to get it? The script's answers are just two halfhearted throwaway lines said by same character at almost the same time—the very definition of lazy writing—and neither justifies the central conflict of the film.
It's easy to like the cast—thanks as much to their previous work as anything on screen here—but with such a convoluted, illogical and dull story, no one fares particularly well. As counterparts, Craig and Ford's chief difference is the proportion between good and bad in their souls, but the script's ham-fisted revelations makes them less—not more—complex as the film goes on.
Favreau's cool efficiency lends the whole project less personality than its high concept needs. But ultimately to blame for Cowboys & Aliens' overall ineffectiveness is Orci and Kurtzman's script.
From the title alone there's hope that Cowboys & Aliens is unusual and fresh, but in truth it's just mundane. Half as weird as it should be, it's painfully terrestrial.
2/5
To read the review in it's entirety, click the link down below
1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger (Craig) with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don't welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It's a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents—townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors—all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival. Starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Keith Carradine and Walton Goggins. The film hits theatres July 29th.