Are you sure? Were you…probed?
Loved it. Got every major cliche of two different genres checked off the list, and in a smooth-flowing story at that. Ford must have been thinking “But Han Solo wasn’t even at the Death Star - why am I involved in this attack?”
I saw this Friday with my nephew. We were both underwhelmed. Harrison Ford seemed to be playing Clint Eastwood in the early spaghetti westerns. Daniel Craig was yummy, though.
StG
Just saw this today and I thoroughly enjoyed it, however I agree wholeheartedly with Roger Ebert’s assessment:
The aliens part was perfectly acceptable summer blockbuster fare, but the first act, which is pure old-fashioned Western, was by far the most compelling part.
Not to mention his excellent voice work as Lex Luthor.
I liked the movie over all.
The positives:
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The a fore-mentioned Clancy Brown.
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Harrison Ford playing an ass was fun.
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Craig rocked the Man With No Name look pretty well.
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The obligatory peyote (I assume) vision quest.
5. I like the aliens weren’t invulnerable. Turns out rifles work pretty well.
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I really liked the Western sub-plot so much that I was a little annoyed when the aliens showed up and interrupted everything. Didn’t expect that,and I wouldn’t mind seeing Favreau do a straight Western.
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Olivia Wilde is hot.
The negatives:
- Olivia Wilde was hot…and not much else.
[spoiler]2. My biggest complaint: the aliens had to be moronic in order for the humans to have a chance at winning. This is a common trope but the aliens were ESPECIALLY stupid in this movie. For example, it’s explained that the humans have a chance of attacking the mothership because the aliens aren’t taking the humans seriously…which would make sense except for the fact that SOMETHING is blowing their scout/resource gatherer ships out of the sky.
Even worse is when the alien commander takes his bracelet cannon off for no reason at all (he has three other hands to work with after all) then places the cannon right next to the unsecured prisoner. I kept waiting for the revelation that they had done that on purpose. Maybe Daniel Craig was a sleeper alien double agent. Maybe the bracelet was designed to explode and take all the good guys out. Maybe giving him the bracelet was an experiment in human ingenuity…they wanted to see if he could figure out how to control it, and would deactivate it remotely when they felt like it. But no…turns out the alien commander was simply a fucktard.[/spoiler]
Overall, a fun popcorn movie.
Agree. As to the spoilered point, I chalked that up to:
the aliens were not supposed to be the “best and brightest” of their society, not elite explorers or trained military, but essentially either (1) prospectors or (2) raiders, not unlike the outlaw gang that Craig’s character had been leading. Similarly, ranch owner Dolarhyde (Ford’s character) wasn’t in that position because he was the smartest or wisest man in the movie, just the most ornery and ruthless, with enough intelligence to not be his son and residual compassion to not be the aliens which actually makes the title of the movie even more apt. 
Though nobody in the movie says it explicitly, the aliens were doing to the “cowboys” (settlers – they weren’t all cowboys) pretty much what the settlers had done to the Indians, and for the same motivation – gold.