Tombstone

Release Date: December 25, 1993

Watch Date: July 31, 2024

“A sizzling, star-studded cast brings to life the legendary battle to deliver justice to TOMBSTONE! Kurt Russell turns in a gripping performance as U.S. Marshall Wyatt Earp and Val Kilmer ignites the screen as the outrageous Doc Holliday. Together, they team up to bring law to the lawless in a notorious showdown with the ruthless outlaws at the O.K. Corral! Get ready for an explosive, action-packed adventure the Wild West would never forget!”

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   We’ve been in a cowboy mood lately.

   It started in late May when I purchased Bob ‘Red Dead Redemption 2’, which is his favorite game. See, he’d somehow been locked out of his childhood PlayStation account – let’s not get into it – and there was no way to prove it was his and therefore no way to get it back. So, he had to make a whole new account and I couldn’t let him go without one of his favorite games. Which then got me into sitting there watching it, because let’s be honest the story is really well done and it’s basically like watching a movie most of the time. Then we went on a road trip to Hell’s Gate, which a very famous point at a very large river in B.C. where water is very shallow and very fast, and I promise a lot more impressive than I’m describing it, and while at a gas station I bought him a cowboy hat. Which, he’s an American, he should have already had one, that was just correcting an error. And just recently, finally, we managed to finish the story for the second Red Dead Redemption game, and we’re starting the first one and honestly should you really be surprised at this point that he wanted to watch a film about cowboys? Especially because several of the characters in the film heavily influenced characters personalities in the game?

   So, anyways, as I said, cowboy mood.

   I like Sam Elliott a lot, honestly, so I was in. I mean, you’re not going to see him a lot of films that aren’t cowboy themed come to think of it. But when the man does a good job, let him do that job.

   Now, I think that the first bit of this film, when all the brothers are together, and they’re interacting and Doc Holliday is there, I think that’s really good. I think when Virgil leaves, and Wyatt gets his revenge, I think that scene is really good. Where I struggle is the montage of murder. It is a lot of time dedicated to just watching Wyatt and Doc go on a rampage and killing people in a gory way. And I get it, they’re outlaws. But it’s a lot. And after the first montage there’s a second montage of murder, and that’s one montage too many.

   I also didn’t like the way they portrayed Wyatt’s first wife. I mean, to be completely honest, I understand if they did have an unhappy marriage and he went off and married an actress. That’s fine. What I struggle with is that the woman never seemed happy, she was portrayed as being moody and awful just so that we wouldn’t judge Wyatt when he went off and had an emotional affair. If my partner were having an emotional affair, if I’d been dragged to a backwater town just so my husband could make a quick buck and the only social life I had was my sister-in-laws? Yea, I probably wouldn’t be super happy all the time either. And Wyatt consistently chose hanging out with his brothers and friends over her. She was lonely, and sure unhappy, but then leave. And it’s not like the actress was really hiding that she had feelings for Wyatt either, with long lingering looks and little smiles. Again. I’d be pissed too.

   In my personal opinion Kurt Russell was the weakest person on the cast, with his two other brothers and Val Kilmer hitting it out of the water. But maybe that’s just because at his point Kurt Russell has such a recognizable face to me that all I can see him as is Kurt Russell. All I can see Sam Elliott as is Sam Elliott too, but he just literally is a cowboy so it doesn’t cause as much of a struggle to suspend your disbelief that he’d be in Tombstone, Arizona.

   This is an incredibly solid movie, that I honestly had a lot of fun watching, and was a great way to cap off our July and head into Avengers August. I don’t think this will totally end the cowboy bug we’ve gotten however; so I expect that Bob will have quite a few more cowboy picks up his sleeve as the rest of the year goes on. But for now, we’re on pause for Avengers August, and possibly Superhero September if life gets crazy and we don’t manage to watch an amount of superhero films that we’re happy with.