Sci-fi actioner is a missed opportunity

Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde and British actress Daniel Craig pose for photographers at the German premiere of the film 'Cowboys & Aliens' in Berlin. AFP

“Cowboys & Aliens” lives up to its title quite literally, because it brings cowboys and aliens together in one movie. But, it fails to realize its intriguing premise’s potential for all kinds of transcendental, genre-bending craziness..

It starts out promisingly enough, with a series of scenes that pays homage to the classic Western. An injured man (Daniel Craig) is found in the middle of a sagebrush wilderness. He has nothing but the clothes on his back, a tintype portrait of a woman, and a manacle-like bracelet on his wrist. As he is taking stock of his desperate situation—he’s bleeding, and he doesn’t even have any boots on—a trio of varmints rides up. So far, so good.

Dusty town

In a matter of minutes, our nameless hero manages to get himself shod, hatted and horsed (he gets a dog, too). He rides up to Absolution, a dusty ex-mining town, and stirs things up by standing up to the town bully and his loudmouthed son.

Up to this point, it’s such a straight Western that you can’t help feeling a little nostalgic. But, then, let’s not forget that the title has an “extraterrestrial” other half, and it doesn’t take them long to make their presence felt, either. Absolution’s main street gets even dustier when alien spaceships suddenly zap their way into town, roping townsfolk just like cowboys rope steers. Nice touch.

It would have been nicer if the film’s director, Jon Favreau, and its scriptwriters had managed to do the same thing to their runaway steer of a story. Unfortunately, they just let it stampede all over the place, and not even the anchoring presence of Craig’s steely, closed-mouthed character and his grizzled, enemy-turned-ally, Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), can keep things from turning messy.

This isn’t to say that it’s completely un-enjoyable. The production’s special effects and stunts are polished enough, and its cast members do the best they can with the material that they have. It’s just that, by not being coherent enough, the entire thing feels like a missed opportunity.