Cowboys & Aliens.

Like most people, when I first heard about this movie, I had no idea what to think. It sounded like it could be either the most idiotic movie you'll ever see, or the most fun. It's most definitely the latter. It was incredibly stupid, but in a good way. It never tried to do anything extremely serious with its absurd premise. It had its flaws, some major ones even but I never felt like they took away from the movie. This is a movie that I can easily put on at anytime and have a good time.

The basic premise is that a man named Jake Lonergan (played by Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the desert with no recollection of his past or name with a strange device attached to his wrist. After warding off a few slave drivers/scalpers, he steals one of their horses and rides off to Absolution. Once there, he catches the eye of Ella Swenson (played by Olivia Wilde), a local girl who seems to know something about Jake's past. Soon after, he runs into trouble with the local bandit Woodrow Dollarhyde (played by Harrison Ford) after getting his son arrested. Suddenly, aliens attack the town and capture many of the townspeople including Dollarhyde's son. They then form a ragtag group and venture off to rescue everyone.

My favorite part about the story is how silly it is. It's full of cheesy dialogue, and plotholes the size of Texas (no pun intended), but it all fuels the classic Western B-movie feel the creators were going for.

The ragtag group is filled with your typical cliche heroes. Your typical amnesia hero and love interest (Craig and Wilde), your gruff anti-hero (Ford), your local village idiot who is always looked down upon (Doc, played by Sam Rockwell), a kid who wants to prove himself (Emmet played by Noah Ringer), and your motivational speaker/priest (Meacham played by Clancy Brown) who's only purpose is to die heroically and give the main heroes a motivational speech about not giving up. Finally, you can't have a western without an Indian tribe who despise the heroes but eventually learns to trust them and fights by their side. All of the actors did a fantastic job. Much like the story, you could tell that everyone had fun. Craig and Ford stand in particular because they play well of each other. Wilde was the only weak point, but that's only because of the other actors she was up against, and not due to bad acting.

The score was fantastic. Harry Gregson Williams skillfully combines the sound of your classic Westerns with the heavy and fast paced score of sci-fi flicks. The main theme is a combination of fast paced violins with some guitar riffs thrown in.

Despite complimenting the plot holes earlier, there a few that stood out as being bad. But they never hurt the movie as a whole and it was easy to look past them. The aliens themselves are getting lots of criticism for their designs, but I really liked it. I laughed at first, but they were unique and original.

I recommend this movie. It's the perfect brainless action flick.

Captain America, Punching Hitler in the face since 1941.

I had my fair share of worries going into this movie. Johnston has done some good movies in his career, but for the most part he's not a great director. My second worry was Chris Evans as Captain America. He's not a bad actor by any means, but he's mostly been cast as comic relief. His first "Serious" role was in Sunshine, and he was fantastic in that. The problem was, I still didn't see Captain America in him.

This film had a great acting, a fitting score, and great style.

The story here, for those that don't know Captain America, is that the skinny and asthmatic Steve Rodgers is a true patriot and wants to fight for his country. However, due to his health issues (and height), he's not allowed to join the military. His enthusiasm catches the eye of a scientist who gives him the chance to become the first supersoldier. Thus Captain America is born.

The acting was great all around. Chris Evans really surprised me here. Not only did he nail the "pre Captain America" Steve, but also as Captain America. He had great charisma. Evans really proved that he's not just a comedic actor. I'm hoping this part will land him some more serious roles. Hayley Atwell played Agent Peggy Carter, a tough as nails heroine and love interest for Steve. One of the strongest points of the film was their chemistry. Of course, there was a few scenes with cheesy dialogue, but I actually enjoyed those. Despite these great performances, Tommy Lee Jones stole every scene that he was in as Colonel Chester Phillips. He had some fantastic one liners and a powerful screen presence. Unfortunately, I felt Hugo Weaving as Red Skull was the weakest link. He was fine as a villain, but his German accent was just hokey.
There was a huge supporting cast here and they were all great. I loved all of the Howling Commandos. I do have to mention Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, the father of Tony Stark/Iron Man. I loved his performance because it really felt like a 1950s version of Tony.

The music was very good and suited the film well. Alan Silvestri scored the film and I love the main theme. It really feels like the theme song of an American superhero. The best part about the music was it was never intrusive when it didn't need to be. There were a few scenes where the music was intentionally cheesy. There some incredibly touching moments backed up by music.

It really felt like a retro/film noir type film with its visual style. It also felt like a parody of the WW2 propaganda films. It had a very surreal visual style. The writing was very good as well. Much like visual style, the writing also acted as a parody of "American" hero cliches.

The action was well shot as well. Like the above mentioned visual style, it had the touch of retro style film making combined with hints of modern action films.

All in all, I can easily recommend this movie. Not only to Marvel fans, but to fans of retro style film making and old school adventure films.