Genre mashup far from exciting, uses cliches from both
Director Jon Favreau and executive co-producer Steven Spielberg adapt the comic book of the same name and leave the screenplay in the hands of a quintet of writers. The outcome is the same "high concept and spectacle with little substance" crap that Hollywood has tried to sell before, containing a story with 100 percent predictability and a cornucopia of Western clichés.
The opening moment where Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the middle of the vast Western land and immediately fights some bandits foreshadows the film's nonsensicalness. Lonergan is introduced as an amnesiac with a mysterious metal shackle on his wrist, but he remembers how to speak English and kick some cowboy keister. He wanders into a small mining town where he's identified as a wanted man and a chain of circumstances pit him against Col. Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), the town's cattle tycoon and one of Lonergan's victims of robbery.
The aliens then appear in their dragonfly-shaped UFOs and start lassoing civilians off into the distance. The design of these aliens is completely unconvincing and unexciting, serving as an example of how Hollywood favors the generic extraterrestrial look. It's never really made apparent how these invaders could be killed, making the final confrontation feel repetitious and exasperating. The only effective weapon against the aliens is Lonergan's laser gun bracelet, and that alone isn't used to great effect.
Lonergan reluctantly forms an alliance with Dolarhyde and the townspeople to help save their kin. During the crusade against the aliens, bits and pieces of Lonergan's memory come into play, divulging his dead wife and his abduction by the aliens. Up to this point, Lonergan's initial amnesia provided a sense of wonder and mystery but is undermined by the explanation behind this amnesia. The background story behind the memory loss provides no emotional influence and raises even more questions that the story fails to answer.
Lonergan's loss of memory isn't the only sense of wonder provided in the film. Olivia Wilde portrays Ella, a mystifying, good-natured hooker who has more knowledge of Lonergan's memory loss than she lets on. While Wilde's portrayal of Ella is an improvement from the story-wise insignificant Quorra from "TRON: Legacy" (2010), she's pretty much the only one-dimensional character and out of place with her pearly white teeth. Her "air of mystery" lacks the necessary anonymity since the story makes her identity as a clandestine cosmic invader too obvious.
So basically, the film's fatal faults comprise the writing and the overall story, which breaks zero new ground despite its fascinating mashup. The story also falters under the team of screenwriters' (including the writers behind "Transformers" and its panned sequels) lazy attempt to accumulate a logical plot. Why did the aliens come for what they came for (which is gold), and why did they have to bother the humans to obtain it? The script attempts to provide completely indistinct answers delivered by the same character, and neither answer completely validates the story's cheap structure.
Despite the characters lacking any emotional connection with the audience, the cast is likable. Craig surprisingly makes for a pretty convincing cowboy as the silent Clint Eastwood figure, even though he appears to try too hard with the Western accent. Ford seems to have fun playing the grouchy Dolarhyde, but it's a shame that intriguing moroseness is softened into a character who gives lectures to kids about manhood.
Overall, "Cowboys & Aliens" is a complete disappointment and a missed opportunity to present some fresh ideas into either genre. It isn't one of the worst summer blockbusters of this year, but it deserves an honorable mention.