Film Review | Cowboys and Aliens

The ‘Weird Western’ sounds like great fun, on paper. It’s a simple mix: grab one part down and dirty western gun-slinging yarn, another part science fiction/fantasy/horror and just watch the broth bubble with joyous, pulpy abandon.

Sadly enough though, this little dream of a sub-genre rarely seems to work on celluloid (it does, arguably, have a better time of it in print).

Wild Wild West (1999), a Will Smith vehicle even more annoyingly hyped than his previous genre caper – Men in Black – was a crashing disappointment, even for my young, as-yet-unsullied-by-cynicism eyes. And more recently, last year’s Jonah Hex was so sloppily handled that its trim 80-minute running time felt interminable.

So perhaps indie director made good Jon Favreau (Made, Iron Man) can be excused for turning to Steven Spielberg for mentorship on Cowboys and Aliens... which declares its weird western nature from its title alone. But with an opening salvo like that though, jokes are very welcome… and the fact that they’re sparse all around is very difficult to forgive.

Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the Arizona desert with a chunky metal device strapped to his right arm and nary a memory of his previous life.

After he dispatches a group of outlaws who try to take advantage of his bewildered state (apart from traditionally grimy Western weaponry, they come complete with menacing catchphrases such as “this is not your lucky day!”), he skulks off into Absolution, a town ruled by the unforgiving Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford).

Jake quickly enters into Dolarhyde’s black books: he administers some righteous justice on the Colonel’s bratty son (Paul Dano) but more importantly, it is also revealed that he is a known outlaw.

But these crimes pale into insignificance as the titular aliens descend on Absolution to snatch away some of its inhabitants and wreck merry havoc on its carefully constructed Old-West-pastiche architecture.

Dolarhyde has no choice but to join forces with Jake, whose mysterious armband appears to be the only effective weapon against the invaders. But what is the missing piece of Jake’s past? And why does a mysterious visitor (Olivia Wilde) appear to have the answer to that?

The one thing you can’t call Cowboys and Aliens is ‘sloppy’ – Jonah Hex’s fatal flaw – because Favreau and Spielberg (the latter is co-producer by the way, same as he was on Super 8), work hard to polish their little monster into Hollywood-friendly shape, so that the fantasy is established in as clean and efficient way as possible, while not a single action beat is missed.

Sadly this also means that, despite its very nature as a zany hybrid, the film is rote to the point of being predictable at every turn. Favreau’s declared intention to play it straight throughout is admirable.

That kind of approach to genre fare was the mark of success for properties such as The Dark Knight, and it can be refreshing to see a film that is not embarrassed of itself, no matter how trashy its influences are.

But while the climactic battle between the two Hollywood clichés satisfies, and while Craig’s unmoving face is a nice (perhaps indirect) nod to Eastwood, this bloated, humourless two-hour stomparound is hardly worth the time.