Went and saw the last of the big summer blockbusters yesterday, and overall (since I avoided Transformers 3) this was a pretty darn good Big Dumb Fun summer.  The weakest of the crop was Green Lantern with Tor next to the bottom, but overall there have been some enjoyable and fairly thoughtful movies for summer fare.  I’m trying to get out to Deathly Hallows which I hear is great.  Maybe tomorrow night.

I had heard some young D.J.’s bitching about Cowboys and Aliens so I was nervous when I went, but the movie proved to be a love story to the Western, and part of the game was figuring out which classic movie to which they were nodding.  THE SEEKERS was obviously a big one, and a little bit of SHANE.  I loved Westerns when I was a kid, but I can’t remember them all that well now.

Anyway, there were lovely little grace notes like the aliens lassoed the humans, and they were after gold which is silly from a science fiction stand point, but perfect for a western.  They had Indians, and bandit gangs, and evil cattle barons — Harrison Ford having a really good time yelling at the aliens to get off his lawn and leave his cattle alone!  

I also liked the fact that the Ewoks — er, cowboys and Indians and bandits don’t do so well against aliens with high tech weaponry.  Arrows and even bullets didn’t do much to kill them.

There was one lovely line about flying that I really liked.

There was one twist I absolutely didn’t see coming which I won’t discuss here since the movie just opened.  A couple of quibbles.  I wish there had been a bit more humor in the form of dead pan one liners, and I wish they hadn’t telegraphed the knife so hard.  It was just too much on the nose, but other than that I had a really good time at this film.

So why did the D.J.’s bitch?  I think it was the pacing.  They said it was boring and I realized that they are part of the MTV and ADD generation, and more accustomed to the pacing of a TRANSFORMERS or FAST FIVE.  Westerns traditionally unspool more slowly.

And thank god Michael Bay didn’t direct this movie.  If he had Daniel Craig would have stolen an alien scout ship, and figured out how to fly the thing, and then engaged in a dog fight with the mother ship.