Review of Cowboys & Aliens (2011) by Halfwelshman — 25 Mar 2012

Cowboys & Aliens is quite awful even by the standards of summer blockbusters. I was pretty keen to see it based on the ridiculous premise - I expected something mad, completely over-the-top, and most importantly, fun.

In reality, it's none of these. The first half of the film tries to play it straight, as a fairly traditional western - a mysterious outsider arrives in a frontier town and finds the inhabitants down-trodden by criminals and corrupt officials.

Then the aliens arrive and the film turns into Independence Day with horses. And the only way to describe the finale is unintentionally hilarious. The film should have turned out better, as there's some real talent behind it.

Director Jon Favreau proved with Iron man that he could produce an exceedingly good fun action movie, and even Iron Man 2 occasionally raised a smile despite its inconsistency. Daniel Craig has had both hits and misses in his acting career, and he's not bad at all in this as the amnesiac protagonist, but Harrison Ford disappoints, appearing to be in various states of constipation in every scene, and Olivia Wilde is as dire as she always is.

The only actor to make any lasting impression is Sam Rockwell, who plays a timid and depressed saloon owner. Not only does the film offer bad acting, but a terrible script (a real achievement considering 5 writers worked on it at some point or another) an overly meandering plot, dull action and a truly unforgiving run-time.

I never expected Cowboys & Aliens to be original (just look at the title!) or compelling, or anything close to approaching a great film, but I at least expected it to be fun. It's not, and that's the greatest crime - it's a summer blockbuster without fun.

All I can say for it is that Rockwell is good, Craig is acceptable, and the film has a single great moment - when our amnesiac protagonist first wakes up, but before we're subjected to the torture of watching the rest of the film.