Review: Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens (2011, John Favreau)

Cowboys & Aliens is director John Favreau’s third comic book adaption after successfully bringing Marvels Iron Man franchise to the big screen. A sensible choice then one would think, and coupled with the prospect of seeing Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford sharing the screen, I was quite excited about this end of season action-flick. The highly ambitious yet extremely creative twist on the Western genre also had my curiosity peaked; could Favreau could pull it off?

It all started rather promisingly. An edgier tone than the generally cheesy trailers that have been doing the rounds was evident off the bat. We are immediately introduced to Jake Lonergan (Craig) an amnesia struck cowboy who can’t remember his name but, with the help of a strange metallic device clasped on his wrist, can conveniently remember how to kick some serious ass. Jake ends up stumbling into a local mining town and the opening twenty minutes are typical Western fun; bandits, bar fights and broads.   

Unfortunately the high-concept plot quickly begins to tarnish what was a strong opening. Plot holes and conveniences slowly start leaking onto the screen like ink-blots on a freshly pressed shirt. It was evident that the writers had issues setting-up a scenario in which a filthy rich cattleman (Ford) would join forces with the bandit suspected of stealing his gold in order to head into battle with an alien race that they have no chance of realistically defeating. Nevertheless they try their best to explain away any gapping caverns in the narrative through a series of handily placed flash-backs.

This can be forgiven though. It’s rare to find an action-movie these days, especially one with such an original set-up, that doesn’t ask you to suspend your disbelief for a moment and just go with it. It’s also easier to excuse when the prospect of Cowboys doing battle with an Alien race to the gorgeous backdrop of the American Mid-West is waiting. Nevertheless, as the third act ensues and the battle begins, again I was left feeling dejected and for such an original concept it alarmingly felt like we’d seen it all before.

From the contrived way the native Indians (complete with their own fantasy language...) are wrangled into the scrap, to the cookie-cutter portrayal of the alien race and their never ending spaceship; everything felt slightly stale. Even the admirable Olivia Wilde couldn’t stop her character from essentially becoming a narrative device to explain away any misgivings in the story, and also being completely transparent to boot.

Essentially Cowboys & Aliens, for such an original concept, is void of any fresh ideas. Rather than using the opportunity to explore new avenues in the Sci-Fi genre it becomes an exercise in how to splice together two very different but very cliché types of film and forget to add originality to either.

Thirty years ago just chucking aliens and cowboys in front of the same camera would have probably been enough to ensure this was a hit. Not today, with high-concept action movies on every other screen in the multiplex I was hoping they would recognise this and create a meeting of worlds that brought something novel and new to revive both genres. But we’ve seen it all before. Don’t get me wrong though; Cowboys & Aliens is by means a bad movie per-se, just switch off your brain before viewing.

3/5