COWBOYS & ALIENS

As much as I really wanted to love this sci-fi/western hybrid, and despite excitedly sitting down with my popcorn and M&Ms all set for a thrilling summer-blockbuster ride, I found myself leaving the theater with more questions than answers.

And somewhat underwhelmed.

Because, if I’m being honest, the movie is sort of like a half-assed alien-invasion thriller combined with a half-assed cowboy shoot-‘em-up, and neither side really delivers the “omigoshWOW!” needed to make the whole thing as fantastic as it definitely could have been.

Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford co-star as, respectively, a nameless amnesiac with a fast-and-furious fist and a ruthless cattle baron with a boneheaded son (Paul Dano), who reluctantly join forces when a middle-of-nowhere Old West town finds itself under attack by a group of extraterrestrials packing some serious firepower. The aliens swoop in at night, blow up buildings and snatch terrified townsfolk into the sky with tentacle-like space lassos, but no one knows why… except, perhaps, for a comely young woman (Olivia Wilde), who takes a keen interest in the us vs. them charge the menfolk – including Sam Rockwell’s saloon owner, Adam Beach’s ranch hand and Clancy Brown’s preacher – take up.

There’s plenty of fighting and fleeing and lasers, and a futuristic, multi-functional wrist cuff that can make mincemeat of anything in its digital crosshairs. There are some nicely suspenseful moments as the people onscreen and those of us in our seats wait for something to come leaping out of the darkness. And there’s a decent amount of sexual tension between the equally hot Craig and Wilde.

Yet Cowboys & Aliens was, for me, just alright.

The problem is, director Jon Favreau and his massive writing team (a half-dozen scribes, including LOST co-creator Damon Lindelof, are credited for the screenplay) fail to deliver anything truly interesting. There isn’t really much in this film that we haven’t seen a dozen times before in other, better movies in either genre, and the proceedings don’t feel at all authentic or real. I kept thinking I was watching actors pretending to be cowboys, and never got lost in the action. Likewise, the filmmakers don’t really bother to address a whole bunch of gaping plot holes, not the least of which is what the aliens really want and why. Sure, they pluck humans into their spacecrafts… but why? The flimsy reason floated in the film directly contradicts the likewise-floated theory that the aliens don’t believe humans are at all dangerous.

And, speaking of the aliens, what do they look like? I couldn't really tell you, save for a vague description, because they're never onscreen long enough to get a good, hard look. Sure, you can see that their abdomens open up to reveal slimy little arms, but they're otherwise zipping past so quickly and are edited so erratically that you'd be hard pressed to actually see the result of what I'm sure were millions of CGI-effect dollars at work. What should be terrifying, eye-popping villains become shadowy, non-descript blurs.

Casting-wise, Craig is the only bonafide success. He’s believable and gritty and sexy. I’m not sure what direction Wilde was given – and let me say that I’m a fan of hers! - but I grew tired of the same wide-eyed, mouth-agape expression she wears throughout almost the entire film. She’s the kind of actress who can kick ass and take names and burn up the screen, and I kept hoping she’d get a chance to do one or all of those things. For his part, Ford phones in what is becoming his trademark “grizzled, bitter, old guy schtick,” and Rockwell seems wildly out of place.

Now, I fully realize Cowboys & Aliens isn’t the type of movie about which you’re supposed to think too long or too hard. It’s based on Scott Mitchell Rosenberg’s graphic novel and could have been a wildly fun, fantastically overblown, over-the-top adventure where you check your brain at the door and just enjoy the mayhem. Instead, it revealed itself to be another entry in the Okay Flicks That Wasted Their True Potential file.