Réalisation:
Jon FavreauPhotographie:
Matthew LibatiqueMusique:
Harry Gregson-WilliamsActeurs·trices:
Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, Noah Ringer, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine, Walton Goggins, Ana de la Reguera (plus)VOD (1)
Résumés(1)
Arizona, 1873. Un homme qui a perdu tout souvenir de son passé se retrouve à Absolution, petite ville austère perdue en plein désert. Le seul indice relatif à son histoire est un mystérieux bracelet qui enserre son poignet. Alors que la ville est sous l’emprise du terrible colonel Dolarhyde, les habitants d’Absolution vont être confrontés à une menace bien plus inquiétante, venue d’ailleurs... (Paramount Pictures FR)
(plus)Critiques (12)
I barely remembered this film that I decided to rewatch today, only to find out there was a reason for it. To say that the film isn’t good is putting it very mildly. I mean, I kind of understand why Jon Favreau liked the combination of sci-fi and western, but the execution is simply pathetic. I’m aware of how pointless it is to look for logic in a film like this, but I just can't help it. I can’t figure out how the creatures worked. A hit from a .45, no result. A hit from another .45, death. WTF?! Being hit by firearms – minimal or zero impact, being hit by a club or a spear – serious injury at the very least. This wasn't really about a lack of logic, but about weirdly functioning physics. The plot was extremely simple, predictable, and very, very lame. The guys only needed one facial expression – badass. Although I normally have nothing against Olivia Wilde, she stuck out like a sore thumb as Ella. At least the true American values were upheld, truth and love won over lies and hatred, and even the Apache hopefully got their reservation. / Lesson learned: No matter what situation you’re in, never forget your hat.
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Une idée « incroyable » qui fait penser au quatrième Indiana Jones mais que se transforme en gâchis après quelques secondes, gonflé à deux heures. Au début, cela semble bien : le cow-boy brutal incarné par Craig est génial, le monde du western est bien réalisé, le premier contact avec les extraterrestres est magique, l'humour et le recul sont précis, les effets visuels sont parfaits et les détails sont bien meilleurs que ceux de la taupe de Super 8. À partir de la scène de sortie du feu, cependant, les bonnes impressions commencent à s'estomper, et la cadence ultérieure des relations rapides et clichées entre les personnages ainsi que les moments illogiques dans les scènes d'action enterrent tout cela. Les scénaristes pensaient que plus ils se déchaîneraient, plus le spectateur s'amuserait aussi… Cowboys et Indiens des prairies américaines, unissez-vous dans un monde idéaliste contre les nazis extraterrestres qui vous prennent pour des insectes et veulent vous voler votre or ! - N'importe quoi.
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Une pure connerie, comme le titre pouvait le laisser présager. Heureusement, c'est plutôt amusant et agréable à regarder et ça vaut la peine pour quelques répliques. Les Indiens tirant des flèches avec leurs arcs sur des créatures spatiales sont définitivement les choses les plus folles à voir au cinéma cet été, peut-être à l'exception des Schtroumpfs. C'est parfaitement délirant. Cependant, il y a quand même beaucoup d'incohérences, Olivia Wilde est tout aussi agaçante que la gamine mexicaine et c'est vraiment dommage que Ford, le dur à cuire, s'adoucisse dans le dernier tiers. Un divertissement non exigeant ? Sans aucun doute.
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The women have secrets, the guys have rifles and the aliens have claws. The division of roles is just as clear as in a classic western, which applies also to the character played by Olivia Wilde, who is finally allowed to do more than just soften the impudence of the guys with her presence. Despite that, the climax doesn’t leave any doubt as to whether the good old Wild West needs women or aliens. The director’s filmography leads us to believe the opposite, but Cowboys and Aliens creates a better impression during the purely western scenes, not in the sci-fi elements. The resounding music and the camerawork making full use of the screen, recalling the times when westerns ruled. The hackneyed alien plot is dragged down to earth by the exaggerated seriousness. Though the film would need humour, the scenes without the strange parasites and with a westernised Daniel Craig are sometimes funny, at least because of the actor’s fierce tenacity. Harrison Ford has a smaller presence, though I believe his few lines are appropriately impactful. Cowboys and Aliens is summer entertainment that places minimal demands on the viewer. In some ways, such as its simple understanding of the world and emphasis on outdated manliness, it is reminiscent of the kind of films that are no longer made today. However, it didn’t manage to convince me that I should regret the fact that such films are becoming increasingly rare. 60%
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Wow! There really isn’t even a pinch of humour. Something like Cowboys and Aliens could never be good this way, even with the greatest genius behind the camera. To make with a serious face a film where a group of cowboys and Indians avert an invasion of aliens that have come to earth to mine gold (oops, spoiler) is mental. If it at least looked good, but no, not even that, it’s just two hours of grey and boredom. Not even the aliens are good!
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I am afraid that the length and content of the script did not exceed the title of the film, which promised a great adventure, and in combination with the talented creative team, ideal popcorn entertainment. The first approximately 15 minutes are divine, Craig is the ultimate tough guy, the canvas shirts smell of sweat, and everyone is carrying their guns low. Then Ford enters the scene, showcasing the most ridiculous toughness in the history of the Wild West, and everything is crowned by an absolutely asexual outfit à la Olivia Wilde's nightgown. The plot takes place in a total of 3 larger locations (with the majority of them being the wasteland of New Mexico), a larger amount of ILM fantasizing, so you can also search for it under a microscope, which raises the question: where did the 163 million from the budget go? From the beginning of the second third, it's perpetually echoing boredom, which this commercial failure fully deserves. The worst blockbuster from approximately 2-3 years ago.
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I was really excited to see this, even despite the strange and incomprehensible story. I thought that nothing can be more surprising than a fight between the 19th century cowboys and aliens who decide to visit an arid town in the middle of the American prairie. Let’s face it, it was all a load of hogwash, but I must admit that I had fun. The actors were cool. Their performances were standard. Harrison Ford’s might have been a bit better. He’ll probably always be charismatic. In any case, the movie’s main currency were special effects – and the authors really put a lot of work into those. It’s true that the story starts getting insane halfway through, but I didn’t really mind that much. I enjoyed it and I think that at the cinema, this experience would’ve been on a whole new level.
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I don't quite know if there's a more tragic screenplay that sometimes becomes unnecessarily entangled in its simple stupidity, or (again) a desperately flimsy Jon Favreau, who created something resembling a television production without a single ballbusting scene, in which several megastars have accidentally become involved. Although the introduction looks quite hopeful, the rest of the film is full of endless desperate awkwardness, which is ridiculous but in no way entertaining. I wonder what the crew spent the $160 million on. Probably fiery water and windy women. You can see it in Cowboys and Aliens - and this could and should have been really good. But the film would have had to be made by someone who at least has the general ability to drop genre clichés and not just mechanically imitate them (and badly!).
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The problem lies not in the fact that the whole screenplay consists only of the three words in the title, nor in the unjustifiably overdone footage (which can be said at least for the fifteen minute extended version), but in Favreau himself. He lacks a sense of atmosphere and action, and the ability to create them. Which, in a film where there is nothing but atmosphere and action, is a bit of a nuisance. It's also a shame that the movie takes itself so deadly seriously, and that this pose only fits during the stylish introduction.
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Me and Craig have one thing in common, we both look pretty dumb in hats. But he’s a bit tougher than I am, so he can get away with wearing them in public. C&A is a fairly simple piece of idiocy that combines the most mundane from the world of westerns and sci-fi, well there’s a couple of interesting ideas (just what do those aliens want here), but you would expect that with such a horde of screenwriters (and not bad ones at that) they would come up with something really good. And Favreau usually does a much better job, saving the show with some playfulness, a certain detachment and Downey Jr., but he this time didn’t smuggle any of this into the movie. The aliens hide for too long and so we don’t have much of a chance to enjoy them in the first, cowboy-like, more tedious half. On the other hand, they do look great (and they are the only thing that Uncle Spielberg’s fatherly hand added), and maybe there is more to learn about them in the documentaries on the DVD. Gregson’s music works pretty well. The only thing I can give full marks to is the casting, Harrison is trying not to fall off the Jones comeback bandwagon and he does very well. And Olivia... oh my, Olivia, if you don’t drown in her delightful eyes, then her almost see-through dress will definitely get you. And at the end she has her hair in a ponytail...
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What initially appears to be an unconventional B-movie, full of juicy visuals (you can see the signature the director of Iron Man), gradually turns into a pile of clichés and a dull display of various forms and quality of visual effects. It's been a long time since I've seen something so conceptually and dramaturgically mishandled, like the ending of this film. Cliché upon cliché – a final battle and a classic catharsis the likes I've seen a million times before. Perhaps nobody expected much from this film, judging by the title, and they won't get much either. I don't understand the insane budget.
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Anyone want a screenwriter? Because Hollywood seems to have a surplus of them. Otherwise, I can't explain why Cowboys & Aliens was written by five people. And why their typewriters produced such a simple result. Nevermind. As you might have guessed, the story is the biggest (and actually the only) weakness of this film. I didn't mind that a bunch of cowboys went on the trail of a UFO just out of the blue, all convinced that "it was going where the machines went". It sounds naive, but that's just how every other thing was handled in the Wild West: Find a clue and follow it. I was more sorry about how the screenwriters botched the dialogue. They did give the tough Craig and the likeable grumpy Ford a few lines, but otherwise most of the dialogue felt heavily used. What I liked, on the other hand, was the effort not to make Cowboys & Aliens into a comedy or even a parody (I guess not enough time has passed since Wild Wild West and the filmmakers are still scared), but a full-fledged sci-fi movie. In this, I think, they succeeded, because the result is more reminiscent of The Valley of Gwangi than the aforementioned Wild Wild West. The dinosaurs may have been replaced by aliens, but no matter what situations the characters get into, you still get the feeling that you're watching a (slightly different) western that is sympathetically lightened by humor here and there and where the action is just right. The special effects are an entirely separate chapter. ILM is simply ILM, and so the alien craft look absolutely superb and irresistibly mechanical, behaving realistically like jet fighters of today, leaving a smoke trail behind them and their engine making a sensational "insect" sound. I was also pleased with the "fish-turtle" look of the aliens and the beautiful (really beautiful, I haven't seen one of those in a long time) final explosion. I also give points to Harry Gregson-Williams, who found a nice listenable compromise between western and sci-fi music, and of course to the director, without whose sense of action (the night raid on the city, the air attack in the desert, the ending) and other (the overnight stay in the boat, the meeting with Jake's gang) scenes it wouldn't have been the same. Four pure stars.
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