Wild Wild West

Sometimes, all you want is a good exciting trashy movie; a western maybe, or a science fiction. Or, like Cowboys and Aliens, both!

It starts out very a regular modern western: Daniel Craig (yep!) wakes up in the sagebrush, clearly with no memory of how he got there, or even who he is. Normal enough for a cowboy, but he has a strange high-tech bracelet around his wrist. When a trio of bounty hunters try to take him, he dispatches them neatly, and takes that's where he gets the goofy hat he wears for the rest of the movie.

Seriously, it's a funny looking hat for a guy with Craig's head. I was worried that Craig would never get any lines to avoid the problem with his accent. That wasn't an issue - he did a reasonable approximation of an Irish immigrant old-time cowboy. But the hat! It makes Yul Brynner's headgear from Westworld look serious. I guess they were worried about associations with Harrison Ford's iconic Indiana Jones fedora.

Because when Craig gets to town, he finds that it is run by the big bad cattle baron, Harrison Ford. He also meets the very cute Olivia Wilde, in a cotton dress accessorized by a big gun. Also, a preacher, a sherrif, a coward barkeep, a kid and a dog. The usual.

Even if the aliens didn't show up about now, I think I would have kept with it, and I'm not a big fan of westerns. This is like in Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, where director One-Shot Beaudine seemed to get wrapped up in the Jesse James parts, kind of forgetting about the Frankenstein.

But the aliens do show up and plenty, grabbing civilians and blasting up the town. So the posse has to head out to round them up. The effects were pretty good, but I'm not sure about the alien melee scenes. There were a few great shots, but all lot of it seemed to the usual mixed up jumble or explosions and CGI beasties.

Still, it moved right along, and we were happy. In the end this was kind of a high-budget B film. Maybe the best kind.