9. Cowboys & Aliens - (July 29th, 2011)
One of the biggest travesties of out-of-the-box creativity was the financial failure of Cowboys & Aliens as it barely soaked in enough money to cover its $163 Million price tag. This movie had everything going for it and I mean everythingthat any human being with ears, eyes, and a soul could want. Riding high off his success with Iron Man, director Jon Favreau tossed in every piece of the summer blockbuster formula someone could want. You have cowboys fighting aliens, that enough should attract anyone. Bring in the badass James Bond and make him work with the badass Indiana Jones, then sprinkle it all up with the woman of my dreams Olivia Wilde (not to mention Sam Rockwell, I appreciate his work more than most peopleGuy from Galaxy Quest). So what could go wrong? Good production value, soft story but enough to carry me through the concept nonetheless. What happened? Smurfsthey happened. The low-brow fart humor and pop-song parodies that have become popular with todays audience, thus resulting in dumber children to take care of the elderly some day, struck down its blue no-quality and heartless hammer, only signifying once again: never release against a childrens movie! Also, the steam of Captain America the week before and the last Harry Potter film a fortnight before that still running very strong did not help either. It was the tail end of summer. Audiences were not willing to risk anymore money on movies that were not established content after so many others that were. Some critics and fans would criticize that it was the film itself. The film did lag at times, and the payoff made you more than shrug with an involuntary eh. But I beg to argue this was all due to its financial failure subconsciously influencing a projects overall quality. I believe the film was good enough, and entertaining enough to warrant more respect, but many will debate with me. Yet tell me right now that when Cowboys & Aliens just happens to be on HBO you dont stop flipping through the channels and enjoy the movie for what it is and should have been.