Release Date – 7/29/2011
Jake Lonergan wakes up in the middle of the desert, with no memory of who he is or where he’s been. But he has some strange metallic device strapped to his wrist and it won’t come off. He travels to a nearby town where he immediately starts trouble with the son of a high profile character and also the sheriff causing him to get arrested. Turns out Jake is wanted for robbery and murder but he has no memory of what he’s done. Before being escorted to a federal prison, strange spaceships start attacking the town and kidnapping its residents. Jake’s device activates and he finds out it may be the only weapon to stop these attackers. He joins up with local townspeople and journeys across the desert to find out where these things came from. This movie is an odd mash up between science fiction and a Western. Maybe that was too much to mash because I was only slightly entertained.
Daniel Craig stars as Jake Lonergan. Not much range here as he’s stone-faced throughout the entire movie. No emotion. Just straight up badass. He has flashes of what happened to him but it’s never quite clear until the final act. Harrison Ford also stars as Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde, a rough and gruff cattle farmer who is one of the town’s most unpopular residents. He actually begins the movie as somewhat of a villain, picking on his men and ordering people around. But once the attack happens he’s forced to join along. Olivia Wilde is thrown in as a mysterious woman very interested in Lonergan’s whereabouts and the weapon he uses. The twist with her a third of the way through the movie was quite ridiculous. Sam Rockwell, who was not advertised in this movie at all, is pretty great as the local bartender whose wife is taken so he’s forced to join the gang. What isn’t Sam Rockwell great in? I ask you that! In an underutilized role is Paul Dano as the Colonel’s spoiled son Percy, who is also taken by the aliens. There had to be some motivation to get his asshole father involved in the story but Dano only had about 10 minutes of screen time.
The movie is made up of 4 parts. First we get the initial Western feeling as Jake travels into town and starts trouble. Then we get the sci-fi aspect when an alien attack occurs. Then back to a Western as the gang travels the desert in search of aliens. Then the final act is a big sci-fi/Western battle between both sides. It’s like 2 movies were fighting each other. The Western side of the story was very generic and the sci-fi wasn’t much better. Why are they here? What do they want? And all that mumbo jumbo. The spaceships and aliens were pretty cool effects-wise. We definitely do not see little green men here. These are some big boys. Like something out of the video game Halo. Director Jon Favreau attempted an epic mash up but it didn’t quite work out the way I wanted. A lot of scenes in the middle were dragging along, while everyone probably just wanted to see some six shooters go up against some laser beams. Maybe my hopes were too high but Cowboys & Aliens didn’t deliver the goods like I hoped it would. Besides a few good performances and some special effects, it’s kind of a throw away.
IMDB – 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 44%
Movie Wiseguys – 6.5/10