Right, lets look at this like I'm sure the studio executives did. Okay, we have Indiana Jones plus James Bond, in a Western, with aliens. Westerns are kind of sexy again, comic book/graphic novel adaptations put bums on seats, Daniel Craig makes most women go a little bit weak and a recent blockbuster shows Harrison Ford mixing it with aliens (sorry, interdimensional beings, my bad Mr. Lucas) makes big bucks. Hey, brain wave...lets get the guys that wrote Transformers and the man that directed Iron Man to work on this too and we cant lose! Can we?? Em, I am afraid to say fellas that yes, you certainly can. Dont get me wrong, I'm not saying that Cowboys and Aliens is a dead loss of a film because it certainly isnt but it isnt far away from being a total disaster. Cowboys and Aliens just does not work the way it should and the main contributing factor to this could be the genre that its pitching itself as. Sci fi Westerns can work, just look at Outland or The Good, the Bad and the Weird, two very good and very enjoyable films, albeit for totally different reasons. But sci fi Westerns also have a very strong habit of not working, just look at Jonah Hex, or the Wild Wild West, both thoroughly risable films. If ever there was a genre hybrid that truly defined the phrase "Hit and Miss", the sci fi western is it. Cowboys and Aliens clocks in as a miss but it could have been so much more.
Daniel Craig wakes up in the desert a few miles outside the backwater town of Absolution. He is injured and suffering from amnesia, not knowing who he is, where he is or how he got there. Strapped to his left arm is a strange manacle that he can't remove and in the dirt beside him is a faded picture of a beautiful woman. Craig's loner finds shelter with Absolution's preacher but brings attention to himself by breaking up the rowdy carousing of Percy Dolarhyde, the son of Woodrow Dolarhyde, a Civil War veteran and powerful cattle barren. He is recognised by the town Sherrif as Jake Lonergan, a man wanted for murder. As the stage coach comes to take Lonergan away strange lights fill the sky around Absolution and the town's folk start disappearing. Could Lonergan and that strange metal manacle on his wrist be the answer?
Not a bad set up, it must be said, but nothing terribly taxing either and that seems to be the biggest problem with Cowboys and Aliens (C&A from now on), it is a film built on stereotypes, on cliches and tired old recipes that makes C&A seem stale from very early on. There is very little fresh or new in this film but in a season drenched with sfx superhero movies it would be very hard to give us something that we havent seen before. So, instead, we are given the best bits of several crowd pleasing movies, polished up and repackaged as C&A. Some scenes seem so familiar you'll find it hard to tell which film you are actually watching (ID4 gets a serious namecheck about midway through). This was the major stubbling block for me, C&A doesnt really try to give us anything that we havent seen before, it doesnt try to freshen things up and unfortunately this comes across as laziness on the film makers part. Another of the faults in C&A is the complete lack of urgency, things just seem to happen in the film as it plods along almost aimlessly. The action set pieces dont flow and as the film progresses you can't help the growing feeling that you dont care about any of these characters, whether they live or die. Nothing gels between the characters, no sense of understanding or sympathy and the attempt at a love story between Oliveia Wildes saloon girl Ella and Craig's Lonergan is just ridiculous as neither actor tries to make it believeable. Harrison Ford is the only one that can come out with any emotional credibilty, giving his character of Dolarhyde a few layers, slowly revealing them on the hunt for the missing town's folk. Sam Rockwell brings much needed humour to the film as the put upon barkeep/doctor but unfortunately there are far too many unintentional laughs in the film as well, laid squarely at the door of the stupid looking CGI aliens. As for Craig, he plays the part well, channelling Eastwood's Man With No Name and Dirty Harry in equal measure. He does exactly what it says on the tin, silent and strong and resilient but again, you dont really feel any connection to him, you feel no real reason to either cheer for him or against him.
Hey, hold on, wait, this is cowboys fighting aliens, this is a popcorn movie, right? Turn your brain off and watch it for Gods sake. Enjoy it!! But that is the problem, there isnt a whole lot to enjoy in C&A, the bangs aren't really big enough and they come far to far apart so there is no rhythm or flow and moreso, there is very little to tickle your funny bone. Jon Favreau, the director of the two Iron Man films so far, seems to have lost the comic touch that served him so well with the Downey Jnr adventures. Infact, the film starts so darkly that you wonder is there going to be any humour in this film at all and C&A seems all the more stronger for that as Craig is this badass out to find out what the hell has happened to him. This start is so strong in fact that you kind of feel let down as the aliens start marauding around the countryside and it becomes a Searchers-lite rescue movie instead of a revenge film. The tone of the film changes throughout, is it a dark, bruising redemption story or an adventure film? It doesnt seem to know itself and makes the cardinal mistake of trying to be both. I think there could be a good reason for that though asthe film has five accredited writers. Five, it took five men to write this. That is never a good sign, the script seems to have been passed around more times than the peace pipe and there is a little bit of every version in there. Yet, if C&A hadnt have tried to mix several tones and idea's then it would have been a good 40 mins shorter and it's no epic as it stands. Long sections of C&A seem strained and put in place just to fill up running time. Not a whole lot happens and when it does it happens way too quick and then underwhelms because we really want to see more, more flare, more action, more fun really. It is a film that you can have no fun with and that is really, really sad.
Now, as I said at the start, this film is not a total disaster. One of the great things about C&A is the darkness, the truly dark and unsettling moments of brutal bloodletting and invasive alien procedures. The use of a strangely placed river boat provides a great moment in the film, the dark shadows and crackling firelight building a great atmosphere as we are introduced to the alien bad guys. The cast as a whole are really strong, the supporting members especially. Clancy Brown, Sam Rockwell, Keith Caradine and Adam Beach really do steal the show, Rockwell in particular but unfortunately Olivia Wilde seems strangely misplaced and out of tune with the rest of the cast but, as we find out, there could be a very good reason for this sense of isolation. There is also a lot in the trailers that didnt make it into the movie so I am guessing that somwhere in the not too distant future we'll see a directors cut that might reshape things and add a little more definition that C&A does need.
Unfortunately, this is a missed opportunity. It is a heavy lug of a film that we as the viewer have to carry around instead of it carrying us from set piece to set piece. This also has to go down as evidence to support the theory that Harrison Ford has really pissed off some powerful career deity as he stars in another clunking, borderline boring film.
6/10
