Review of Cowboys & Aliens (2011) by Gordon H — 21 Jun 2016

Not great, but okay.

Originally written July 30, 2011--.

Bearing a mysterious metal shackle on his wrist, an amnesiac gunslinger (Daniel Craig) wanders into a frontier town called Absolution. He quickly finds that strangers are unwelcome, and no one does anything without the approval of tyrannical Col. Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). But when Absolution faces a threat from beyond Earth, the stranger finds that he is its only hope of salvation. He unites townspeople, outlaws and Apache warriors against the alien forces in an epic battle for survival.

I have to admit. I really wanted to like this movie. The director, Jon Favreau, directed some of my favorite movies---Elf, Iron Man, and Iron Man 2. So I was really looking forward to what I "thought" would be a classic sci-fi western. Unfortunately, that just isn't the case. It's okay, not great, but okay. In the words of Roger Ebert, one of my favorite movie critics, "'Cowboys & Aliens' has without any doubt the most cockamamie plot I've witnessed in many a moon. Here is a movie set in 1873 with cowboys, aliens, Apaches, horses, spaceships, a murdering stagecoach robber, a preacher, bug-eyed monsters, a bartender named Doc, a tyrannical rancher who lives outside a town named Absolution, his worthless son, two sexy women (one not from around here), bandits, a magic bracelet, an ancient Indian cure for amnesia, a symbolic hummingbird, a brave kid with a spyglass, and a plucky dog who follows the good guys for miles and miles through the barren waste and must be plumb tuckered out." That pretty much tells you all you need to know. Like I said, this movie isn't great, but it's okay. Three stars out of five.