Review of Cowboys & Aliens (2011) by Xgary X — 25 Aug 2013

An outlaw with total amnesia teams up with the local townsfolk, his old gang and the last surviving members of an Apache tribe to rescue their people stolen away by body snatching aliens. I have to say that the little kid inside of me loved the idea of matching six gun toting outlaws against flying saucers and the set up to Cowboys & Aliens actually lives up to the idea really well.

Daniel Craig makes an extremely charismatic tough guy with no name and the opening scenes as he tries to discover what happened to him are great. It does lose its way a little as the aliens creep more and more into the story but it throws itself into the preposterous premise with such abandon you can't help but get carried away by its sheer enthusiasm.

It would have been a more satisfying experience if we'd learned more about the aliens, rather than them being relegated to bug-eyed monster duties but Favreau has proven that he has a flair for unpretentious entertainment and this is another example; it certainly won't win any awards for originality, but it is reasonably good fun.