Cowboys & Aliens
Aug. 31st, 2011 06:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tealinI loved the trailer.
I don't think I've ever seen a movie be that dumb AND that boring at the same time.
I mean, dumb movies bring their own sort of entertainment, right? And the dumber they are, often the more entertaining they are, albeit you're laughing at the movie rather than with it. But this one miraculously found a sweet spot, previously thought impossible by theoretical screenwriters, right at the point where IQ and Entertainment Value both equal zero. It's a filmic singularity! Having no measurement in any dimension must mean it does not exist, right? O that that were the case!
Another miracle that the filmmakers managed to pull off was making something so boring out of a premise THAT AWESOME. I mean come on – aliens in the Wild West? How awesome is that? Apparently not awesome enough to carry a film in its own right because AAAAARGH.
At first I thought it was just badly written. It is badly written, to the point that all the acting talent of Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford can't save the dialogue they're given, but it's also stupidly written. I don't know who's responsible for the script, whether the screenwriters really are dumb or whether the long list of executive producers took something good and made it awful, but there's some really dumb stuff in there. I started keeping a mental list but lost track about half an hour in, so screw it. It is full of dumb. Most of the dumbness is stuff like enormous yawning logic chasms, overstating the obvious, and setting something up and paying it off within the same scene, but you're carried between these moments by some hopelessly clumsy dialogue and nonexistent characters.
Here is my attempt at a summary, to the extent that that is possible with such a hopeless mess of spaghetti. There will be spoilers, but that's okay, because if you do decide to watch this (maybe you are drunk, or need motivation to do something else) you won't care what happens next anyway.
Tragic Backstory Heisenberg1 turns up in the middle of The West with no memory but a heck of a lot of whup-ass. After stealing a better costume from some bandits (?) he rides into town where he meets 1D Preacher, The Kid, Dr Nebbish, Overprivileged Brat and his father the rich cattle rancher who is ACTUALLY NAMED Dollarhide. (That is my second favourite moment of ONTD after Avatar's 'unobtainium.') He also finds out he's a wanted criminal. Oh, and there's the impossibly glamourous young lady who attaches herself to him who we will call Victoria's Secret Time Lord for reasons which become clear later.
The aliens turn up in their polluting fighter-jet-like attack vehicles, kidnap some people including Overpriviliged Brat and Mrs Nebbish. The unlikely band of desperadoes we have conveniently met set out in search of their lost apparently-loved ones. Dr Nebbish doesn't know how to use a gun; 1D Preacher tries to teach him, imparts his One Spiritual Insight and then dies, but this was sufficient to convert the hard-hearted. We meet T.B. Heisenberg's former gang who hate him for his Tragic Backstory but this attempt to inject drama doesn't actually make anything more interesting. In another battle with the aliens we see just how little biological sense their anatomy makes, before Victoria's Secret Time Lord 'dies,' just in time for Our Heroes to be apprehended by some Apaches, who are of course morally superior and deeply in touch with the myffic. They attempt to cremate Victoria's Secret Time Lord, but she regenerates – completely naked! However she's too skinny to have boobs worth filming so she's shot from the back, keeping it PG-13 and friendly for kids who can stand sitting through two hours of tedium for a few brief moments of alien gore. Through a series of convenient flashbacks and infodumps from Victoria's Secret Time Lord, we learn:
a) the aliens are here for gold – OH NO, IS THAT A TRANSPARENT ALLEGORY I SMELL?
b) they enjoy a spot of recreational vivisection on the side, hence the abductions
c) V.S.T.L. is the last ofthe Time Lords her race, which was wiped out by these same aliens, so she has travelled to Earth from Gallifrey her planet to stop the same happening here, conveniently taking the form of a really hot chick who doesn't know how to wear period undergarments.
d) they have an impregnable secret base but T.B. Heisenberg knows where it is and how to get in because he escaped from them as part of his T.B.
Cue assault of Dread Fortress and the coming together of warring factions to partake of much derring-do: Dr Nebbish saves the day by being a crack shot, The Kid becomes A Man, V.S.T.L.'s noble self-sacrifice, T.B. Heisenberg gets his revenge on Alien Mengele, the abductees are rescued and crest a ridge to swelling music, Apache-hating Dollarhide saves White-hating Apache Chief, fill in the cliches as you see fit. All is forgiven and everyone dances at Dr Nebbish's bar to the rockin' hits from Ken Burns' Civil War soundtrack!
About the time V.S.T.L.'s secret identity was revealed I realised how this movie might have been saved: If it had been an episode of Doctor Who (which, at heart, it was) it would have had
1. A time limit of under an hour, which is really all it had plot for
2. Wit
3. ACTUAL FRIGGIN CHARACTERS
For that matter it could also have been an episode of Stargate SG1. It would still have been a highly unmemorable and sub-par episode of either, but a whole movie? Really? What a waste of celluloid, or whatever it was they used.
Oh well, it kept people employed. That's what it's all about, when you get right down to it, right?
I don't think I've ever seen a movie be that dumb AND that boring at the same time.
I mean, dumb movies bring their own sort of entertainment, right? And the dumber they are, often the more entertaining they are, albeit you're laughing at the movie rather than with it. But this one miraculously found a sweet spot, previously thought impossible by theoretical screenwriters, right at the point where IQ and Entertainment Value both equal zero. It's a filmic singularity! Having no measurement in any dimension must mean it does not exist, right? O that that were the case!
Another miracle that the filmmakers managed to pull off was making something so boring out of a premise THAT AWESOME. I mean come on – aliens in the Wild West? How awesome is that? Apparently not awesome enough to carry a film in its own right because AAAAARGH.
At first I thought it was just badly written. It is badly written, to the point that all the acting talent of Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford can't save the dialogue they're given, but it's also stupidly written. I don't know who's responsible for the script, whether the screenwriters really are dumb or whether the long list of executive producers took something good and made it awful, but there's some really dumb stuff in there. I started keeping a mental list but lost track about half an hour in, so screw it. It is full of dumb. Most of the dumbness is stuff like enormous yawning logic chasms, overstating the obvious, and setting something up and paying it off within the same scene, but you're carried between these moments by some hopelessly clumsy dialogue and nonexistent characters.
Here is my attempt at a summary, to the extent that that is possible with such a hopeless mess of spaghetti. There will be spoilers, but that's okay, because if you do decide to watch this (maybe you are drunk, or need motivation to do something else) you won't care what happens next anyway.
Tragic Backstory Heisenberg1 turns up in the middle of The West with no memory but a heck of a lot of whup-ass. After stealing a better costume from some bandits (?) he rides into town where he meets 1D Preacher, The Kid, Dr Nebbish, Overprivileged Brat and his father the rich cattle rancher who is ACTUALLY NAMED Dollarhide. (That is my second favourite moment of ONTD after Avatar's 'unobtainium.') He also finds out he's a wanted criminal. Oh, and there's the impossibly glamourous young lady who attaches herself to him who we will call Victoria's Secret Time Lord for reasons which become clear later.
The aliens turn up in their polluting fighter-jet-like attack vehicles, kidnap some people including Overpriviliged Brat and Mrs Nebbish. The unlikely band of desperadoes we have conveniently met set out in search of their lost apparently-loved ones. Dr Nebbish doesn't know how to use a gun; 1D Preacher tries to teach him, imparts his One Spiritual Insight and then dies, but this was sufficient to convert the hard-hearted. We meet T.B. Heisenberg's former gang who hate him for his Tragic Backstory but this attempt to inject drama doesn't actually make anything more interesting. In another battle with the aliens we see just how little biological sense their anatomy makes, before Victoria's Secret Time Lord 'dies,' just in time for Our Heroes to be apprehended by some Apaches, who are of course morally superior and deeply in touch with the myffic. They attempt to cremate Victoria's Secret Time Lord, but she regenerates – completely naked! However she's too skinny to have boobs worth filming so she's shot from the back, keeping it PG-13 and friendly for kids who can stand sitting through two hours of tedium for a few brief moments of alien gore. Through a series of convenient flashbacks and infodumps from Victoria's Secret Time Lord, we learn:
a) the aliens are here for gold – OH NO, IS THAT A TRANSPARENT ALLEGORY I SMELL?
b) they enjoy a spot of recreational vivisection on the side, hence the abductions
c) V.S.T.L. is the last of
d) they have an impregnable secret base but T.B. Heisenberg knows where it is and how to get in because he escaped from them as part of his T.B.
Cue assault of Dread Fortress and the coming together of warring factions to partake of much derring-do: Dr Nebbish saves the day by being a crack shot, The Kid becomes A Man, V.S.T.L.'s noble self-sacrifice, T.B. Heisenberg gets his revenge on Alien Mengele, the abductees are rescued and crest a ridge to swelling music, Apache-hating Dollarhide saves White-hating Apache Chief, fill in the cliches as you see fit. All is forgiven and everyone dances at Dr Nebbish's bar to the rockin' hits from Ken Burns' Civil War soundtrack!
About the time V.S.T.L.'s secret identity was revealed I realised how this movie might have been saved: If it had been an episode of Doctor Who (which, at heart, it was) it would have had
1. A time limit of under an hour, which is really all it had plot for
2. Wit
3. ACTUAL FRIGGIN CHARACTERS
For that matter it could also have been an episode of Stargate SG1. It would still have been a highly unmemorable and sub-par episode of either, but a whole movie? Really? What a waste of celluloid, or whatever it was they used.
Oh well, it kept people employed. That's what it's all about, when you get right down to it, right?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 02:37 am (UTC)