Cowboys & Aliens Review - IGN

Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Iron Man's Jon Favreau and loosely based on the Platinum Studios graphic novel of the same name, is a sci-fi/western mashup set in the Arizona Territory, 1873. The film follows Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), an amnesiac gunslinger who wakes up in the middle of nowhere with a futuristic gauntlet on his arm and no idea of how it got there.Jake arrives in the town of Absolution where he comes to the aid of meek saloon keeper Doc (Sam Rockwell) who is being harassed by young thug Percy Dolarhyde (a scene-stealing Paul Dano) and his cronies (including Adam Beach). Jake is later approached by the beautiful, enigmatic Ella (Olivia Wilde) who knows much more about Jake's troubles than she possibly could. But before Jake can get any answers, Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) and his deputies come to arrest him. It turns out Jake is quite the outlaw who, although he has no memory of it, allegedly stole from the all-powerful local rancher (and Percy's badass dad) Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford).

Before the Colonel can take Jake away to mete out punishment, distant lights signal the sudden and violent arrival of – you guessed it -- alien invaders. The brutal attack on Absolution plays out like an Old West Pearl Harbor. The alien ships destroy the town and abduct some of its inhabitants before Jake downs one of the spacecraft with his strange gauntlet. This otherworldly threat forces Jake and Dolarhyde to ally for the greater good, and – along with Ella, Doc, preacher Meachum (Clancy Brown) and Taggart's grandson, Emmett (Noah Ringer) – they ride out to rescue the townsfolk. Along the way, they also join forces with Apaches (led by Raoul Trujillo) who have encountered the aliens.

What's immediately apparent about Cowboys & Aliens is its tone. This isn't an ironic popcorn flick winking and nodding at its genre trappings. No, Cowboys & Aliens is a straightforward western, with all the elements that you'd expect to see in a classic oater -- that is, until something literally out of this world happens. It's a largely dramatic western that just so happens to have sci-fi elements in it rather than a sci-fi film with cowboys. It's an important distinction and one that separates Cowboys & Aliens from goofy, anachronistic genre-benders like Wild Wild West and Jonah Hex.

Aspiring to be the cinematic love child of Sergio Leone and young Steven Spielberg, Cowboys & Aliens could have just as easily starred John Wayne and Steve McQueen back in the day. Speaking of Spielberg, he served as an exec producer on this and his Close Encounters of the Third Kind has frequently been cited by Favreau as a tonal and visual inspiration for Cowboys & Aliens.

In addition to its top-notch, period accurate production and costume design, the performances by the film's classy ensemble help what could have seemed preposterous or unintentionally funny feel real. Craig is steely cool as always here, while Wilde imbues Ella with more presence than her underwritten role provides. But it's Ford who is the one you stay glued to watching, primarily because he's such a bastard for most of the movie. It was nice to see him play a largely unlikable (but not unsympathetic) character again, and it's his best turn in recent years.

It's to the filmmakers' credit that they play it all straight because that's what invests you emotionally in the movie. However, Cowboys & Aliens works far better as a western than as an alien invasion film. In fact, many of you might walk out of the film wishing that you'd just seen a good ol' fashioned western instead. Like this summer's Super 8, another Spielberg-produced sci-fi drama, the alien element is the weakest part of an otherwise human tale.

The aliens just aren't very threatening after that opening attack on Absolution. That sequence is a stunner, but no set-piece after that comes to close to matching its intensity or execution. The script is the weakest part of the movie. The plot turns predictable and generic after a shocking revelation is made about one of the characters, and the pacing is tripped up by Jake's flashbacks.

The aliens themselves are largely undefined; they're simply big, greenish monsters not dissimilar from so many other aliens seen on-screen in recent years. Only one of them is truly individualized. Otherwise, they're just CG creations running loose to serve as video game-style cannon fodder for Jake's gauntlet. The pedestrian handling of the aliens mars (no pun intended) the townsfolk's climactic stand against the invaders.

Cowboys & Aliens is fun overall, but its "aliens" just aren't as rewarding or well-executed as its "cowboys." It's too bad Favreau couldn't have made a straight-up western as that's the part of the movie he's clearly most invested in. As far as summer popcorn flicks go, Cowboys & Aliens offers a welcome jolt of originality in a season marked by sequels and brand names. It's just too bad it never quite realizes its full potential.

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