Review

Review Date: 31-July-11
Spoiler Rating: Low
Juju Judgment: Junk

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

As its literal title reveals, Cowboys & Aliens is a story about people from the Old West meeting creatures from outer space. In addition to the double-billing of Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford ("When Bond Met Indy" read an Entertainment Weekly cover story), the movie tantalized with the idea of humans with limited technology going up against aliens with enough technology for space travel. Unfortunately, the movie's most notable accomplishment is illustrating the difficulty of merging two genres, the western and alien invasion flick.

The principal problem with Cowboys & Aliens relates to scope. Westerns deal with an episode in American history and men defining themselves through violence. Alien invasion flicks deal with a possible episode in Earth history and the human race defending itself from violence. In Westerns the characters can seem like real people despite following a thematic template, whereas in alien flicks they are overt stereotypes because the action and effects are more important. When mushed together as in this case, neither the large-scale nor small-scale elements get their due; they look like pale shadows of their disparate genres. The alien action parts are constricted by the personal parts, and the personal parts feel not only stereotypical, but tacked-on. The movie (which credits a slew of writers, never a good sign) attempts to reconcile the genres with a tough hombre named Jake Lonergan (Craig) who wakes up in the sagebrush with a gash in his side, a strange metal band on his wrist, and no memory of who he is. After killing some rednecks, he rides into the nearest town only to find that there's a price on his head. The tedious introduction sets up the oater themes of boys needing to become men, the town being ruled by a crotchety cuss (Ford), and the presence of a woman bound to shake things up (Olivia Wilde), but we're really just waiting for the spaceships to arrive.

When they do arrive, blowing up horses and snatching people off the street (yes, there is probing), Lonergan morphs from renegade to savior because the doohickey on his wrist turns out to be a weapon. Thus he is asked to join the posse to rescue the alien abductees. From then on the movie wrestles up flashes of entertainment when the aliens attack (they're insectoid, goopy, and possessed of classic monster instincts for surprise and intimidation), which are promptly squelched when dialogue replaces special effects. The feeble romance, the cute orphan (The Last Airbender's Noah Ringer), the nerdy doctor (Sam Rockwell), the Indian scout (Adam Beach), the entire Indian tribe that joins the hunt — these look about as natural as designer chaps at a dude ranch. Unable to merge their genres into something eccentric and exciting, director Jon Favreau and the screenwriters would have done better to let the Old West serve as mere backdrop for a beefed-up alien smackdown. For sure as these cowboys and aliens don't get along well, neither do the traditions this movie tries to embrace.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.