Another Take: Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

By Jason Haskins

On paper, or at least in my head, the concept of mixing cowboys and aliens is an awesome one. Some may scoff at the title of the film, but it literally explains everything you need to know about this movie. Daniel Craig plays a bandit cowboy who wakes up in the desert without his memory, but with a weird contraption on his wrist that turns out to be a weapon of some kind.

He’s captured in a nearby town for crimes he’s committed, but before he’s shipped off to court, a huge alien invasion happens and he bands together with the people of the town—including Harrison Ford as the rich gruff guy who runs the town—in order to save those that have been abducted…and perhaps stop the alien plan of stealing all of the gold from Earth. Seriously.

I really dug the whole idea of mixing these two genres and I was quite floored in the beginning, but what sucked was how nothing was really done with either category to really rise above these genre conventions. What’s more is that the Western parts were more interesting than the Sci-Fi parts, if you can believe that.

One of the largest reason this movie falters so much is that the script (based on the graphic novel by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg) is largely forgettable and tame when it could have been super clever. As I was watching the movie I was waiting for certain things to happen and it hit every stride with such a precise and lame way that I was very disappointed by. The characters are all underwritten, which is a shame because they could have been great such as Sam Rockwell’s Doc character as well as the awesome character portrayed by Adam Beach who gets the most conventional treatment of the entire film.

The cast is pretty amazing with Daniel Craig putting forth an impressive array of badassery that I really enjoyed what with his macho-ness, tilted cowboy hat, and creepy blue eyes. Harrison Ford and Craig have good chemistry together. Beyond that, this is easily the best work Harrison Ford has done for quite some time. He gives this really stoic performance, but also one that’s quite sweet in regards to his relationship with Adam Beach and, to a lesser extent, his abducted son played by Paul Dano. Sam Rockwell made the movie for me as he served as comedic fodder and was a sweet guy just trying to find his wife. It’s such a pity his character wasn’t adapted as efficiently as he should have been.

The special effects are mostly okay, despite some tame aliens that aren’t very original looking and a third act that fails to do anything original with the big budget. As I said before, the Western-based aspects of the film were handled with a better finesse, as director Jon Favreau almost seemed more at home and comfortable with tangible areas as opposed to some of the CGI sections. There are large moments of action, but nothing to the degree of jaw-dropping visuals or truly exciting moments that had me on the edge of my seat (pardon the cliché).


It’s not like Cowboys & Aliens is a terrible movie. It’s not like it didn’t have its moments and I definitely dug many sections of the film, but the major disappointment is the fact that the filmmakers dropped the ball completely on an interesting idea. It’s a forgettable popcorn flick that’s shallow with nothing really brewing under the surface in terms of plot, character development, or any concrete elements of action or cinematic flair I’ll remember in a week. That’s where it fails to a certain degree because it’s so frightfully average that it doesn’t take any chances with its script. This is better suited as a rental for die-hard fans of either genre.


© Jason Haskins


2.5 out of 5 stars

Be sure to check out Paco McCullough's review of Cowboys & Aliens.