Movie Review: Cowboys & Aliens

Directed by: Jon Favreau

Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde

Summary: While it has a few moments of real fun and action, Cowboys & Aliens mostly proves that it takes more than a unique concept and an all star cast to make a great movie.

My rating: 6/10

Synopsis: In the 1830s, a man (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the desert. His memory is gone, he has a mysterious wound on his side, and a strange cuff on his arm. After nearly getting caught by some bounty hunters, the man rides into the town of Absolution, which is run with an iron fist by Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Once he's in town, the man finds out that his name is Jake Lonergan, and he's got a bounty on his head for stealing Dolarhyde's gold. To make things worse, he gets caught after picking a fight with Dolarhyde's spoiled son, Percy (Paul Dano). Just as tensions between Lonergan and Dolarhyde are rising, a group of strange ships from the sky fly over the town, abducting several of the townspeople, including Percy. The townsfolk find their shot guns and pistols useless against the ships, but as it turns out, that mysterious iron cuff around Lonergan's arm is a powerful weapon that can shoot down the space crafts. Dolarhyde, Lonergan, and several other townspeople must then embark on a quest to save their kin.

Review: The above synopsis pretty much covers the first half hour of the film, and I personally thought this set up was the best part of the movie. It's after that, however, that the film really falters. Now, let's get one thing clear. When I went to see a movie called "Cowboys & Aliens," I obviously wasn't expecting an Oscar-winner, I was just expecting some fun entertainment-- a unique mash-up between a Western and a Sci-fi, with some exciting action scenes and snappy dialogues like the ones from Favreau's previous film, "Iron Man." However, this movie seems to be a shining example of how it takes way more than a great cast and a cool concept to make a great movie. I think this really had the potential to be a great summer entertainer, but it's slow second act and poorly written characters prevent it from being anything more than some forgettable time pass.

I think my biggest problem with the film was that it wasn't really as fun as you would expect from something with a title like "Cowboys & Aliens." While the opening act had plenty of moments that kept things fun and interesting (like watching Jake disarm three bounty hunters, for instance), the film wasn't able to keep up the same momentum throughout its running time, so most of it feels like a chore to watch, aside from one or two good action scenes. One thing that I think could have helped would be to keep the mystery around the aliens going a little longer, similar to how they did in "Super 8."

I'd have enjoyed the film a lot more had they fixed this pacing issue, but what really prevents it from being a great film is the characters. The script didn't do a good job fleshing out the characters and making them likeable. I think they were trying to make them like an archetypal Western cast. We have the "man with no name," the tough former war hero, the comic relief, etc, but I don't think that using such archetypes is an excuse for poor character development. As I mentioned before, the early set up for the characters was very well done, it's just that the film doesn't really go anywhere with them after the first half hour. For example, I loved the way they introduced the main character, Jake Lonergan, and built his character up as a cool and calm "man with no name" character, while Col Dolarhyde was set up to be a tough and hardened war hero. After their initial clash, we're lead to believe that Dolarhyde and Lonergan will be two enemies forced to work together, but once the two agree to do so, we see hardly any interaction between them at all. Instead, most of the screen time is used to develop the bland romance between Jake and Ella (Olivia Wilde), a mysterious woman who's trying to help Jake remember his past. I think the film would have been much, much better had they not tried to force the boring romance on us, and had instead tried to do more with Dolarhyde and Lonergan learning to get along, or even just showing us more of the secondary characters. The little bits we get to see of characters such as the Doctor (Sam Rockwell) are enjoyable, but we really don't get enough of them to make us care for the characters. So when we get to the big climatic battle with the aliens at the end, and each character gets their own defining moment, I can say I had fun watching, but I didn't particularly care.

While I was disappointed by these aspects of the film, I still think it's worth a watch. I definitely stand by my earlier statement that the opening act is really great, and of course it has its share of cool action sequences. If you're one of those people who heard the title "Cowboys & Aliens" and expected just that, and don't care so much about relatively flat characters, I don't think you'll be too disappointed, except for during the scenes of Jake and Ella's poorly written romance. If nothing else, the film was worth it for me just to watch Daniel Craig, who plays the strong and silent character Jake to perfection (I'd personally love to see him play a cowboy again in a more traditional western). Harrison Ford's character has way too little screen time, but he was still great fun to watch. Overall, I think this film was an entertaining one-time watch, but mostly I was disappointed that it didn't do enough with its unique concept to be a more memorable film.