Cowboys & Aliens Review: Mild, Mild West

The idea to fuse two of film’s most recognized genres, the shoot-‘em-up Western and sci-fi creature feature, seems like the kind of no-brainer cash cow any studio would have wrangled long before the likes of Alien vs. Predator or cars that turn into robots made it to the silver screen. Unfortunately, the long awaited, succinctly dubbed Cowboys & Aliens arrives with too little of both titular elements to be considered a successful hybrid. There are cowboys, all right, and aliens aplenty, but director Jon Favreau’s attempt to cohabitate the two results in a strangely flat, incoherent drawl that evokes neither the stoic pathos of successful Westerns nor the galactic intellectualism of the best science fiction. Instead, five screenwriters (!) and more than a dozen (!!) producers, some of brow-raising pedigree, joined forces to adapt the simple, intriguing concept from Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s 2006 graphic novel and pulverize it into a curiously uninspired tumbleweed of space dust.

Things do get off to a promising start, as Daniel Craig‘s craggy, virtually wordless Man With No Name awakens in the middle of the Arizona desert circa 1870s with a punctured gut and alarmingly anachronistic metal contraption shackled to his wrist. As he moseys his way toward the sleepy town of Absolution, the mystery man’s bewildered gaze makes it clear he’s being introduced to himself as well as the viewers. The intrigue quickly dissipates, however, as the Western setting is weakly reinforced with awkward character presentation. The motley crew of townsfolk is understandably curious about the drifter’s appearance, particularly when a brawl with the entitled, pantywaist town drunk (Paul Dano) results in the sheriff (a brusque Keith Carradine, aptly cast and aptly ‘stached) noticing a Wanted poster emblazoned with the enigmatic gunslinger’s image, and name: Jake Lonergan. When Dano’s whiny man-child enlists the help of his father, grizzly cattle czar Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford, a galaxy far, far away from the Mos Eisley Cantina), the amnesiac Lonergan is fingered as the leader of an outlaw gang. This news surprises him far more than it does the audience.

Before justice can be served, the opaque night sky is dotted with a curious series of lights that quickly morphs into a dizzying extraterrestrial attack, and not a moment too soon. The aliens interrupt the saloon-worthy shenanigans and snatch random civilians with their own lassos – tentacle-like ropes that dart from the bottom of their spacecrafts with the precision of a sniper rifle. Lonergan notices amidst the chaos that the clunky appendage on his wrist responds to the enemy, finagling a weapon far more useful than anything the 19^th century has to offer. The fact he can’t remember how or why he acquired it isn’t the highest priority at the moment, but the nagging, grimy-colored flashbacks hint he’ll have to figure it out eventually.

With both cowboys and aliens sufficiently herded on screen and battle lines distinctly drawn, such character-developing subplots take an unfortunate backseat as the meandering action is thrust front and center. Any hopes for a warp drive leap into genre-blending innovation, sadly, are subsequently blasted. Among the wreckage include a clumsily presented alliance with a tribe of Native Americans, wasted opportunity to explore the origin of the aliens and mythology of their background, and the groan-inducing romance between Lonergan and Ella (Olivia Wilde), a mysterious drifter herself whose knowledge of the visitors and Lonergan’s past hint she may have ulterior motives of her own. The pairing of Craig and Ford, meanwhile, had headlines brimming with anticipated delight over a Bond and Indy dynamic duo, but only Craig seems truly invested. Ford, on the other hand, seems to be collecting a paycheck.

Despite the lumbering pace and uneven direction, Cowboys & Aliens certainly has its share of summer movie fun, particularly evident in Craig’s squinty-eyed mastery of the lone wanderer machismo, the creepy, three-pronged hands that protrude from the aliens’ chests, and the fantastic mothership that conveniently looks ripped from the production design of Dune. While it’s fair to say that a movie titled Cowboys & Aliens shouldn’t be knocked for eschewing historical accuracy and literary symbolism, it is a valid argument to wonder why the creative effort behind the cowboys and aliens isn’t a bit more apparent. As Lonergan and Dolarhyde battle the space invaders with all the Civil War technology they can muster, it’s disheartening to realize what they’re allegedly fighting for isn’t given a fair chance to develop emotional resonance. Only Sam Rockwell’s unassuming saloon owner evokes genuine pathos, as his search for his missing wife presents the most touching relationship in the entire movie. As for the rest, it’s all dust in the wind.

Images courtesy of Universal Studios, Zade Rosenthal and DreamWorks II.