Movies: Cowboys & Aliens

Score: *** out of *****

Long Story Short: Cowboys & Aliens is a modestly entertaining summer film, most notably for, unsurprisingly, its two huge stars. Despite combining two dissimilar genres, the story proceeds in a pretty conventional manner, with few surprises. A good supporting cast helps, along with fun music and nice scenery, but it's not enough to make it one of the better films of the summer.

Well, this is likely to be my second-to-last review of the summer movie season (I'm hoping to still see Rise of the Planet of the Apes). It's been a full season, even by my busy movie-going standards. This one, Cowboys & Aliens, I had been looking forward to for some time since seeing the trailer. I mean, James Bond and Indiana Jones (the actors, at least) in one movie? Sign me up. The film was directed by Jon Favreau (Iron Man - as the poster proudly states). Let's get started.

Jumping right into things, the film starts with a random cowboy (Craig) who has awakened in the middle of the wild west. He is clearly not a normal cowboy, though, as A) he doesn't know who he is or how he got there, B) he has a strange metal "bracelet" on, and C) he totally kicks the butts of a group of wandering outlaws (a la... James Bond). The cowboy stumbles into a nearby town, where he humiliates the town head honcho's arrogant son, but is then arrested when the sheriff recognizes him as outlaw Jake Lonergan. Col. Dolarhyde (Ford) comes to get his son released from prison at night, but out of the blue the town is attacked by UFOs, which begin snatching people off the ground. Afterwards, Col. Dolarhyde rounds up a rescue team to search for their kidnapped townsfolk, but Jake goes off on his own to try to recall what's happened to him.

After Jake manages to recall his connection with the aliens, he rejoins Col. Dolarhydes group. They have tense encounters with both Jake's old gang of outlaws as well as Apache indians, but eventually combine with these groups as they hope to fight off their common enemy. The film culminates in a final battle with the aliens to free the abductees, while Jake and a mysterious woman from the town also explore their own strange connections. (I don't want to spoil any more, even surprises that aren't particularly well disguised).

There is a wealth of acting talent in this film, but sadly it does not quite live up to its potential. Let's start with Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford. They are both entertaining here, and I wouldn't describe their performances as "mailed-in" at all. But they have a bad script to work with. Basically, the writer seemed to be a little too enthused with the idea of teaming "James Bond" with "Indiana Jones" - despite the fact that in this movie they are cowboys, they really just play the roles they were made famous by, particularly Craig. I think both of the actors are talented enough to effectively pull off cowboy characters, but the writer just didn't give them a chance to do that. Ford's character is a little better, but here the problem is that the traits of his character (grumpy, sarcastic, tough, yet a family man) are exactly the same as Indiana Jones, particularly the latest installment from a few years ago.

The supporting cast has some highlights as well. Unfortunately, the female lead, played by Olivia Wilde, is quite bland and cliche despite (or because?) the script trying to a dual nature. Standouts include Doc (Sam Rockwell), a gun shy bar owner; Percy (Paul Dano), the cowardly son of Col. Dolarhyde; and Rev. Meacham (Clancy Brown). These characters add a little spice to the movie, although they lack significant screen time.

These movies, as I've noted before, require creative and/or tense action sequences, a good sense of humor, and a sense of concern for the fates of at least some of the characters. This film makes an attempt on each front, but doesn't excel at any of them. The initial UFO attack is unsettling and intriguing, yet the climactic battle is a little long and falls into convention and lacks suspense. There is some good humor, but the film could really have shifted into more of an action-comedy with little effort and seen substantial improvement for it; as it is, the supporting cast (esp. Rockwell and Dano) provides most of the laughs. Finally, there are sympathetic aspects to several characters, but we don't really get to know any of them well enough to get a great connection. On a final, more positive note, the film does benefit from both a very nice, sweeping score, as well as gorgeous scenery and cinematography.

***

Cowboys & Aliens is an entertaining film, but it falls more in the Pirates 4 category of fun than Captain America category. Ultimately, its worst sin is that it's an unimaginative mashup of two well-worn genres. The writers and director had plenty of creative space to work with, whether it was finding a clever way to combine the genres or taking the film's two huge stars out of their comfort zones. They could have even simply made it a silly movie with lots of comedy (perhaps Rush Hour-esque). What we get is passable filmmaking thanks to the strong presence of its stars, the effective supporting cast, and nice peripherals (music and visuals). But this movie should have made itself memorable, even if not as one of the strongest movies of its kind, at least for doing something particularly well or original. It doesn't, and I sadly can't really recommend it unless you are a big fan of Craig and/or Ford.