Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Reviewed by: Conor Flynn

 

When I first heard the title to this film, I automatically thought of two things. Firstly, the film title seemed to be yanked straight out of z-grade (micro-budget) hell. It turns out that the story is based on a comic book. Secondly, the horror of ‘Wild Wild West’ wiki wiki-ed its way back from the recesses of my mind. To my genuine surprise, the trailer for ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ wasn’t remotely like that latter dreck, if anything, the trailer and accompanying poster suggested a darker, moodier piece. Of all the summer event films, this one I looked forward to the most, but did it live up to expectations?    

A stranger with amnesia (Craig) awakes in a desert to find a strange bracelet attached to his wrist. He arrives in the town of Absolution, but soon his past catches up with him when Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford), a farm rancher with an iron grip on the town, discovers his return. But before their dispute can be resolved, aliens attack from the sky and abduct the majority of the townsfolk…

Once the opening act is dispensed with, and it is quite literally forgotten about until a useless summary towards the films closure, we finally get down to the brass tactics of the cowboys and aliens smackdown. The film relies heavily on standard conventional wisdom, for example, the aliens are quite ambiguous and abduct various townsfolk to study humanities weaknesses. If only they had studied their own weaknesses, and by extension, the weaknesses of the story, which only offers the aliens one laser powered bracelet, which is conveniently stolen by the main hero, who proceeds to decimate the majority of the aliens. Sure, there is one alien who has a similar weapon, but shouldn’t all the aliens carry these powerful hand weapons? Suffice to say that the story, which took six writers to hone, is a poorly conceived mess.  

Essentially, this is a film were you’re asked to kick back and enjoy the shenanigans no matter how ridiculous they become. Considering how inane the story is, it’s amazing that any of this was pulled of successfully. Generally when it comes to westerns, it’s a given that a mega budget piece such as this will look great, ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ is no exception. Other technical areas also impress, particularly the atmospheric soundtrack provided by Harry Gregson-Williams. On the acting side, Harrison Ford is his usual likeable grumbling self, whereas Daniel Craig channels Clint Eastwood’s persona of ‘the man with no name’ well, but he lacks real charisma. Director Jon Favreau opts to play things straight and handles the action scenes well, but the film is far too po-faced and lacks fun it should have in abundance.

‘Cowboys & Aliens’ avoids another ‘Wild Wild West’ fiasco, but it could and should have been so much better. It remains silly, but too serious. In doing so, it neuters most of the absurdity of its situation, but to the determent of a sense of fun.