Movie Review: "Cowboys and Aliens"

Somewhere in the middle of a sprawling, tumbleweed-filled desert, a man wakes up with a start.

It’s Daniel Craig at his most rugged, covered in dirt and blood (his own) and wearing a clunky metal bracelet he has never seen before.

Craig’s character (who is revealed as Jake Lonergan) goes on to wordlessly kill a group of bounty hunters, steal their clothes and wander into the nearest town.

Even if a viewer is worried about whether the film will live up to the hype (it doesn’t) or whether this is just another shoot ’em up blockbuster (it is), watching Lonergan try on a dead man’s boots is fun. Summer is known for featuring entertaining movies and, despite a few rough patches, “Cowboys and Aliens” is one of them.

The first scene of “Cowboys and Aliens,” the most recent film from “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 2″ director Jon Favreau, sets up Lonergan as the strong, silent type with a mysterious past. The trouble is he knows about as much of that past as the audience does.

Lonergan arrives in a small town ““ the kind where shootouts happen outside of saloons ““ the same day the titular aliens attack. As far as aliens go, they would be unmemorable if not for the oddly human hands that creep out of a cavity in their torsos.

As the aliens blow up the town and kidnap townsfolk, the clunky bracelet turns into a high-powered alien laser. Not surprisingly, the bracelet and its owner are the key to rescuing the missing citizens.

The rescue team makes up the bulk of the main cast, including: Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a man’s man like Lonergan, a war veteran and a rough-around-the-edges ranch owner searching for his son; Doc (Sam Rockwell), a bartender and doctor looking for his wife; and Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde), who is even more “mysterious” than Lonergan.

There are plenty of explanations for why the movie drags in several spots. Besides a few poor jokes and predictable plot points, the fight scenes fall flat, mainly because cowboys with unreliable 19th century rifles are no match for aliens with blue laser beams.

Maybe a sci-fi meets western film sounds good on paper, but the genres are distinct for a reason. Even with Lonergan’s bracelet, one wonders why the aliens haven’t killed everyone after the first 30 minutes. Favreau tackles that challenge by introducing human adversaries, the sort one would expect cowboys to be facing.

“Cowboys” also has a humor to it that makes up for some of its duller moments. Rockwell’s Doc gets more than his fair share of witty quips and Ford plays Dolarhyde with his usual “tough guy with a heart of gold” charm.

Like Dolarhyde, the movie is predictable, not always funny or exciting and nothing that hasn’t been done before, but still enjoyable.

Email John at [email protected].