Out of this world

If the world were on the brink of war with an alien species I can’t think of anyone better than James Bond and Indiana Jones to save the day!

Yes, Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig have teamed up to play a couple of gun-slingers in the Wild West and, just to make it entertaining, they’re fighting extraterrestrials. You’ve got to hand it to the producers here, if nothing else, it’s an original concept.

I’d love to have been in the meeting when this film was being pitched. I have a feeling the discussion went a little something like this …
Guy one: “Hey, let’s make a Western.”
Guy two: “No, let’s make a Sci-Fi.”
Guy three: “Wait a minute … what if …. We made both!”
Producer: “Great idea, here’s a truck load of money, go nuts and don’t worry if it makes no sense.”

The film begins in 1873 with a man named Jake waking up on the outskirts of town. He’s bewildered and has no idea who he is or where he’s from (no, he hasn’t stumbled out of JJ’s on a Thursday night) and he’s wearing a mysterious, yet rather dashing piece of jewellery around his wrist.

Jake picks himself up off the ground and begins an arduous walk into town, if you can even justify calling it a town. It’s a failed mining community in the middle of nowhere and it’s home to bad-boy Woodrow (Ford) and his son, Dano. 
 
As Jake arrives, he quickly realises that the people in this town don’t take too kindly to strangers. The sheriff immediately recognises him as a murderer and slaps the cuffs on him quicker than you can say ‘Yehaw’.

However, there is one person in town who seems to want to give him the benefit of the doubt … Ella (Wilde), a pretty young woman who is intrigued with who he is and where he came from. But before she gets the chance to really ask any questions, the sky lights up and … you guessed it, aliens arrive!

Unluckily for the townsfolk, these are more like the aliens from Independence Day than ET and all hell breaks loose as lasers destroy the town and (I loved the irony of this part by the way) giant lassos hoist people up into the ships!

Since it’s the Wild West after all, the poor townsfolk have nothing to defend themselves with except some six-shooters and bad language. However, the battle turns around when the bracelet on Jake’s wrist turns out to be a weapon which sends one of the ships crashing down to the ground.

After seeing what he can do, all the people who once wanted Jake dead are now in awe of his ‘powers’ and make him an integral part of the posse (Native American Indians included) sent to round up the outer-space bandits.

From this point on, the movie is all-action and cleverly employs the old adage, ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ as the whole gang finally put their differences aside.

As the plot progresses, Jake begins to remember more about who he is and where he’s from but I can’t say much more without spoiling the only truly interesting part of the film.

Ford does a great job as a disgruntled elderly cowboy and throws in elements of Han Solo’s cocky behaviour for good measure. It just goes to show his acting ability and diversity, there is seemingly no role he can’t play.

Craig’s performance on the other hand was a little dry for my taste and I feel like he could have phoned in his part. Admittedly, it’s not easy playing an amnesiac cowboy wrangling up aliens, but come on, give it some emotion!

The rest of the cast do a passable job but luckily for the audience, the special effects compensate for the script.
 
However, I think the biggest problem with this film is that audiences and critics alike are taking it far too seriously.

This movie blends two genres which are polar opposites of each other … I mean, come on, a Western Sci-Fi?! It doesn’t make sense and it’s not supposed to. It’s meant to be a bit of fun and, if you can’t tell that from the ridiculous title, then you need to be shaken, not stirred.

Showing in Cineco, Seef II and Saar Cineplex