As with seemingly every other tentpole release to hit the multiplex this summer, the action thriller Cowboys & Aliens is based on a comic book – albeit a lesser-known one. It’s directed by Jon Favreau, whose previous comic-book adaptations, Iron Man and Iron Man 2, proved how much better those films can be when they’re grounded in character. Unfortunately, his latest effort is grounded not in character but a hook, an alt-history scenario best expressed in the language of the average twelve-year-old: “Like, wouldn’t it be awesome if, like, a bunch of 1870s cowboys had to fight a bunch of crazy aliens with exoskeletons and spaceships and super-advanced weapons?”
Like, perhaps. The hook was compelling enough to get someone to pony up a reported $160 million to find out, and the result is a film in which the western and science-fiction genres don’t so much blend as violently collide. After the wreckage is cleared, both emerge worse for wear.
Daniel Craig stars as Jake Lonergan, a stranger who awakens in the New Mexico Territory with a case of amnesia, a wound in his side, and a strange contraption strapped to his wrist. After dispatching a trio of bandits with Bourne-like efficiency, he rides to the nearby town of Absolution, where he stumbles on what appears to be an elaborate Western Iconography exhibit presented by the local historical preservation society. There’s the well-meaning town Sheriff, Taggart (Keith Carradine), struggling to enforce order amidst lawlessness; the greedy rancher, Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), who really runs things; his debaucherous, cowardly son, Percy (Paul Dano); the timid saloonkeeper, Doc (Sam Rockwell), who’s going to stand up for himself one of these days; the humble preacher Meacham (Clancy Brown), dispensing homespun spiritual advice; et al.
Jake, of course, has his own part to play – the fugitive train-robber – as we discover when his face shows up on a wanted poster and a sneering Dolarhyde fingers him for the theft of his gold. The only character who doesn’t quite conform to type is Ella (Olivia Wilde), who, as neither a prostitute nor some man’s wife – the traditional female occupations in westerns – immediately arouses suspicion.
Jake is arrested and ordered to stand trial in Federal court, but before he can be shipped off, a squadron of alien planes appears in the sky, besieging Absolution and making off with several of its terrified citizenry. In the course of the melee, Jake’s wrist contraption, wherever it came from, reveals itself to be quite useful in defense against the alien invaders. Thrown by circumstances into an uneasy alliance with Dolarhyde, he helps organize a posse to counter the otherworldly threat – and bring back the abductees, if possible.
Cowboys & Aliens has many of the ingredients of a solid summer blockbuster, but none in sufficient amounts to rate in a summer season crowded with bigger-budget (and better-crafted) spectacle. For a film with five credited screenwriters, Cowboys & Aliens’ script is sorely lacking for verve or imagination. And what happened to the Favreau of Iron Man? The playful cheekiness that made those films so much fun is all but absent in this film, which takes itself much more seriously than any film called Cowboys & Aliens has a right to. Dude, you’ve got men on horses with six-shooters battling laser-powered alien crab people. Lighten up.
Craig certainly looks the part of the western anti-hero – his only rival in the area of rugged handsomeness is Viggo Mortensen – but his character is reduced to little more than an angry glare. And Wilde, the poor girl, is burdened with loads of clunky exposition. The two show promising glimpses of a romantic spark, but their relationship remains woefully underdeveloped. Faring far better is Ford, who gets not only the bulk of the film’s choicest lines but also its only touching subplot, in which his character’s adopted Indian son, played by Adam Beach, quietly coaxes the humanity out of the grizzled old man.
