Cowboys and Aliens - Review

First I want to say a hearty thank you to all the participants of last weeks contest.  We did in fact have a 3 way tie in the end.  Go figure, eh?  I had to use the number generator after all.  So without further fanfare, the winners of the contest are:

 - 1^st place winner of a copy of the book The Pea in Peanut Butter:  Inluvwithwords (aka Ruth)

 - 2^nd place winner of the goody bag:  Miranda Paul.

Congrats ladies.  If you haven’t already, please forward to me your mailing information so that Allyn can ship out your prizes.  Thanks so much for playing. 

This past week I was so excited as the movie Conan was coming “back” to theaters as a re-make.  Yes, I know it’s a surprise, but I am a huge fan of Conan.  Arnold, I’m still love you.  You gotta admit, the guy was buff in those films.  No he didn’t say much, but YEOW!  The fact that it was being remade was high on my list of MUST see movies.  However, when I went to get tickets, for some reason I hadn’t realized it was rated R.  As I had my two children with me, one as young as 9 years old, I had a slight issue.  I asked the ticket guy if the R was for violence or for sex.  Poor fellow about died of embarrassment at my question.  Even his ears turned red.  Ha!  Anyhow, it was for violence, sexual content, and nudity.  All three bad things.  So no Conan for Courtney.  Bummer. 

Instead we chose the movie Cowboys and Aliens.  Yuck.  I so did not want to see this movie.  The trailer was way way WAY over run and not the greatest if you ask me.  So it was not high on my priority list of movies.  But we were there, and ready for a movie (had our candy stash is what that means), so Cowboys and Aliens it was. 

The movie was actually very good.  It had plenty of intrigue and surprises, along with a great cast in Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig for starters.  I was also very happy to see that they used real American Indians to play the parts of…..the American Indians.  Maybe not all of them, but a lot that I could see anyway.  So, snaps to the production people on that.  Yay. Also, they used real horse people.  What I mean by this is, people that could ride a horse without bouncing around like an idiot.  It takes more than a lesson or two to ride a horse well.  Nothing annoys me more in a cowboy movie than a person on a horse that obviously has never been on one before.   

The premise was as the title indicates, Aliens and Cowboys duking it out, over of all things, GOLD.  The Aliens also snatch up people, and do research on them…ick.  The humans go on a quest to try to find their abducted kin and save them.  Then you have Jake, a loner, with no memory but obvious skills with weapons and self defense.  Toss in a strange weapon attached to his wrist, and a wanted poster with his face on it and intrigue you have.  Sounds convoluted even now, and not like a great movie, but again, surprise, it was.  Even my girls liked it.  That says something as they are even more picky that me. 

So although I was quiet disappointed that I couldn’t see Conan, I was very happy with our choice in the end to see Cowboys and Aliens.  Go figure.

Did anyone else catch this flick?  What did you think? 

If you got to see Conan, I don’t want to know about it!  No Fair!

 ctny