Cowboys & Aliens Review
By: Joshua “Don’t yank on it, it’s not your pecker” Richey
For a film that features James Bond and Han Solo battling aliens in the Wild West, Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens is a bit of a letdown. Now when I say that it’s a letdown you probably think that I’m saying that it’s bad. That’s not necessarily the case. It’s just that this film was supposed to be (pardon my French) the tits. It’s directed by Jon Favereau. You know, the guy that did Iron Man! The guy that did Swingers! The guy that made Elf! The guy that did Zathura Iron Man 2! Not only that but the film also includes an all-star cast with Olivia Wilde, Daniel Craig, Sam Rockwell and some up-and-comer named Harrison Ford. Hell, even the title of the film just oozes with awesomeness. It’s like Cowboys and Indians BUT WITH ALIENS!!!!
While it seems to have everything needed to be a hit, the actual film itself isn’t the boner-inducing blockbuster that we were hoping for. Instead, it’s just another action movie.
Cowboys & Aliens is the story of an outlaw named Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) that wakes up in the middle of the dessert with no memory. Searching for answers, Jake heads to town in search of anything that might help. It’s in this small town that Jake meets Ella (Olivia Wilde), a mysterious woman that pleads for Jake to help her find what she’s looking for. When Woodrow Holarhyde (Harrison Ford), a cattleman and war hero, comes to town to get his young son Percy out of trouble, the town is attacked by alien spaceships and abducts half of the town in the process. Just when it appears that the townsfolk are no match for the intergalactic intruders, a mysterious metallic bracelet on Jake’s wrist helps even the odds. From there it’s up to Jake, Ella and Woodrow to track down the aliens base and to free the imprisoned citizens.
The most disappointing thing about Cowboys & Aliens is just that it isn’t as memorable as you would hope that it would be. For as great as the concept is, the film comes across as heartless and easily forgettable. It’s a very predictable story with lackluster performances from the A-listers. In the end, it just has you leaving the theater going “meh.”
We give Cowboys & Aliens 3 completely unnecessary plot twists out of 5.
