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COWBOYS AND ALIENS AND APES (OH MY)
Sep. 20th, 2011 10:12 amAnd it’s been a weekend at the cinemas for me. You know what means by now. Move along.
Paul
The latest action-comedy from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, in which they play comic/sci-fi nerds who follow up Comic-Con with a road trip of America’s UFO hot spots – and meet a dope-smoking alien named Paul who is on the run trying to meet his interstellar ride home. It starts off a bit weak (compared to Pegg/Frost films Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz), but things pick up considerably when Paul turns up. Slightly mawkish at times, but otherwise very enjoyable and lots of fun, particularly for SF/comic fans who will appreciate the dozens of nerd references more than the average moviegoer – to say nothing of fundamentalist Christians, who will definitely be offended once Kristin Wiig enters the story. There’s yr recommendation right there.
Cowboys & Aliens
Genre mash-up in which people in a frontier town are abducted by aliens, and their only hope of rescue is an outlaw with an alien weapon strapped to his arm and no memory of how he got it. Great idea in theory. In practice, it’s a mixed bag, not least because neither the Western bit nor the sci-fi bit are all that original to start with. That said, if they were separate films, the Western would be the better of the two, thanks largely to good performances from Harrison Ford (which you’d expect in a cowboy flick) and Daniel Craig (which you might not expect if you think of him mainly as James Bond). That’s not to say the alien part feels tacked on. But the mash-up isn’t all that clever, either. A livelier script would have helped a lot.
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Not so much a remake of Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes as a reboot of the saga, forsaking the whole time-travel gimmick in favor of the science-gone-wrong gimmick – specifically, a scientist trying to create a cure for Alzheimer’s that also results in much smarter apes. The story is loaded with most of the stereotypes and clichés you’d expect for this kind of film, which may be why so much credit is given to Andy Serkis for creating the most convincing CGI motion-capture ape yet seen. He’s definitely the best thing about the film. It’s hard not to see the film for what it is – another commercial reboot of a bankable trademarked franchise – but it’s serviceable, as reboots go. We’ll see where they go from here.
Gorilla you’re a desperado,
This is dF
Paul
The latest action-comedy from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, in which they play comic/sci-fi nerds who follow up Comic-Con with a road trip of America’s UFO hot spots – and meet a dope-smoking alien named Paul who is on the run trying to meet his interstellar ride home. It starts off a bit weak (compared to Pegg/Frost films Shaun Of The Dead and Hot Fuzz), but things pick up considerably when Paul turns up. Slightly mawkish at times, but otherwise very enjoyable and lots of fun, particularly for SF/comic fans who will appreciate the dozens of nerd references more than the average moviegoer – to say nothing of fundamentalist Christians, who will definitely be offended once Kristin Wiig enters the story. There’s yr recommendation right there.
Cowboys & Aliens
Genre mash-up in which people in a frontier town are abducted by aliens, and their only hope of rescue is an outlaw with an alien weapon strapped to his arm and no memory of how he got it. Great idea in theory. In practice, it’s a mixed bag, not least because neither the Western bit nor the sci-fi bit are all that original to start with. That said, if they were separate films, the Western would be the better of the two, thanks largely to good performances from Harrison Ford (which you’d expect in a cowboy flick) and Daniel Craig (which you might not expect if you think of him mainly as James Bond). That’s not to say the alien part feels tacked on. But the mash-up isn’t all that clever, either. A livelier script would have helped a lot.
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
Not so much a remake of Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes as a reboot of the saga, forsaking the whole time-travel gimmick in favor of the science-gone-wrong gimmick – specifically, a scientist trying to create a cure for Alzheimer’s that also results in much smarter apes. The story is loaded with most of the stereotypes and clichés you’d expect for this kind of film, which may be why so much credit is given to Andy Serkis for creating the most convincing CGI motion-capture ape yet seen. He’s definitely the best thing about the film. It’s hard not to see the film for what it is – another commercial reboot of a bankable trademarked franchise – but it’s serviceable, as reboots go. We’ll see where they go from here.
Gorilla you’re a desperado,
This is dF
