Film review: Cowboys & Aliens

Remember Snakes on a Plane? The first thing that springs to mind when you hear Cowboys & Aliens is that this must be a barefaced sequel - the aftermath of a meeting of sozzled execs challenging each other to come up with the name that would flog the most box-office tickets. Either that or it's a nugget of 24-carat genius with which they wanted to catch us unawares. The truth is that Cowboys & Aliens strikes somewhere in between.

Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) is a cowboy who can't remember a darn thing. Waking up in the desert with a chunky metallic bracelet encasing his arm, he ambles into the nearby town of Absolution and tasks himself with finding out what's going on and who he is. Doubling up the craggy-faced fun, Harrison Ford plays the wonderfully named Woodrow Dolarhyde, a mean-spirited old bastard who wants Lonergan's blood for the theft of his gold (of course, Lonergan can't remember stealing it at this moment in time).

It doesn't take long for the sci-fi contingent to make an appearance, and when they do, it's hardly a fair gunfight; the aliens unleash hell with lasers blazing, raze Absolution to the ground and abduct half of the townsfolk (their means of seizure is something of a letdown; sort of futuristic rope ladders as opposed to beams).

However iffy the title might be, Cowboys & Aliens is acted with more gravitas than you'd anticipate. Craig for one makes a fine cowboy. Were James Bond around in the Wild West, he'd be something akin to Lonergan - a smoldering loner with a stockpile of one-liners and a handy right hook. Heck, Lonergan even has the gadgets; that bracelet is exactly the kind of thing you'd expect to see 007 misusing to unzip a cocktail dress, although in fact it holds the secret to Lonergan's amnesia.

Putting in his second sterling performance of recent films (see Morning Glory), Ford's is a surprisingly composite character who shrugs off his initial dastardliness (using one of his lackeys as a Stretch Armstrong, tied between two horses), to reveal a soppy old sod who just wants to get his whimpering son (Paul Dano) back.

The two disparate men form a ragtag rescue party, which also comprises a whiskey-slugging priest (Clancy Brown), a small boy with growing bloodlust (Noah Ringer) and Olivia Wilde as a mystery woman. Considering she's a gal alone in the Wild West, she's treated with mighty fine respect by the men, and maybe that's because it's she who seems to have at least an inkling of what's afoot.

Here's the shocker then: Cowboys & Aliens works pretty well. Tracking down the otherworldly kidnappers (and by the way, these aliens are retro - all gooey claws, and Jason and the Argonauts style movement), the group discover a ship stranded in the middle of the desert ("I don't know much about boats, but I would say that one's upside down"), and clash with a settlement of Indians and a band of villains, before Lonergan's memory is finally restored and everyone takes to the mountains to give them aliens what-for. As far as action and adventure's concerned (and that's exactly what this movie is concerned with), Cowboys & Aliens hits the spot on numerous occasions.

One question: What would Cowboys & Aliens have been if you took away the cowboys? Or the aliens for that matter? Well, Humans & Aliens would be a painfully basic UFO abduction flick. And if you substituted the aliens for a gang of outlaws or wild Indians, you'd have yourself a familiar revenge Western - something like The Searchers or True Grit.

Off-the-wall as it sounds then, Cowboys & Aliens feeds off staple movie concepts, and it's not so much the story that makes it or the ridiculousness of the premise, so much as the care taken writing the individual characters, and the straightness with which they're played. That and some superb action.

Is Cowboys & Aliens stupid? Of course; it's called Cowboys & Aliens, for goodness' sake. But its refusal to play any scene for laughs gives it a credibility that isn't quite befitting of its throwaway title. With Craig and Harrison both in fine fettle and a roster of behind-the-scenes talent (including Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard in producer roles), this is certainly not one to dismiss altogether. Although a sequel would be pushing it.

Will Noble can be reached at
wnoble@praguepost.com