We took a look at the 2011 Daniel Craig film Cowboys and Aliens. It's a genre bender of western and science fiction. Daniel wakes up in the middle of nowhere, he's lost his memory, and he's got a bad cut on his side. Some guys show up and figuring he might be wanted by the law decide to take him to town. Bad idea, soon Craig is wearing their clothes and taking their money. None of them will be needing anything they had. Harrison Ford is the rich dad of some young punk who's in town drinking for free, shooting stuff, and generally acting like a right asshole. Typical western characters dot the landscape. Sam Rockwell plays the store owner and he's a bit of a whimp. Daniel has a super hand weapon stuck on his arm and it surprises the hell out him the first time it gets used. Daniel goes to town and the ruckus starts. Turns out he's a wanted man who was part of a gang of robbers and murderers. Ford was robbed of some gold by them and Daniel stole it from the gang for his whore. Ironically she didn't want that blood money and as they discuss it in a flashback the ceiling bursts open and some aliens, on flying machines, kidnap the couple with shiny lite up lariats. The aliens have a nice big ship hidden in the mountains. Daniel manages to escape, we see it in his mind as he sees flashes of the tragic abduction where they bruned his wife to death after slicing her up. Some native Americans get involved with the fight. Turns out the aliens are on earth mining gold and if the rest of their race finds out about Earth they will be back in full force for an all out invasion. Don't worry, they won't get away with it if Daniel and Harrison can help it. There's a lot of nice western US scenery to feast your eyes on. I though the western part of the story is kind of weak but it is rather typical of that genre. The aliens are nothing special, they mostly yell and roar and slash. Not a great find but mostly entertaining. I debate getting a copy but it seems like a thing to watch from NetFlix.
Our second feature was the latest film in the Planet Of The Apes francise The Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. James Franco plays an incredibly dumb scientist at a pharmaceutical company who creates a virus that will kill us all. What a fuckin' asshole, huh. He's just one of a gang of people that deserve to doom us for their actions. Brian Cox plays the jerky head of the animal shelter and Tom Felton plays one of the handlers in the rather depressing primate house. Tom is especially an asshole but he gets killed by Caesar for his cruel actions. All these people, and others, continually make the mistakes that give Caesar the intelligence, and need for vengence, to escape his cage and take his new tribe with him. There are some plot holes in the script and though I am normally somewhat forgiving these ones are face smackers. Like the scientists, who are studying Caesar's mothers blood but don't notice she's pregnant before they start pumping her full of the virus. When the project falls apart due to their stupidity and carelessness Franco takes newborn Caesar back to his place, even though it was supposed to be destroyed with the other animals, and it's just an all around bad idea. Jonathan Lithgow plays James's dad and he's got Alzheimer's. He's in sad shape but lucky for him the virus his son is working on is supposed to be a cure. Illegally, and foolishly, James puts the virus in his dad who gets better for a while. It helps revive the project and the virus is made stronger to work harder. That new virus can kill people but it only makes the animals smarter. Nothing worse than smart animals that are faster and stronger than humans. Even humans with guns. The apes escape from the top of the animal shelter which has a glass dome. The apes never think to escape through the glass until they have been made smarter. I'm not buying that at all. There are some other annoying things but really, who wants see some stupid people kill us off, it's depressing enough to have happen in real life. Not a movie I'd bother with again. I'd rather go watch the original movie. Some of the Apes movies that followed are pretty stinky but I haven't seen them in a while and haven't missed them.
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