Australian Penthouse

Cowboys & Aliens

Director: Jon Favreau
Stars: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, Paul Dano
Paramount Pictures

Hollywood is no stranger to genre blending. In fact, short of the usual fair of reboots, remakes and sequels, it seems to be one of the few vestiges for originality. Case in point, Cowboys & Aliens. An epic collection of Hollywood heavy hitters—from the new and old school—have put their weight behind this seemingly simple mash up: the Old West meets the alien-infested science-fiction genre.

With established bad-asses Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford as leading men and Hollywood hottie Olivia Wilde as eye candy, the on-screen potential is well on the way. Couple this with the behind-camera collective talents of director Jon Favreau (Iron Man), executive producer Steven Spielberg, producer Ron Howard and writing/producer duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, and you’d think that Cowboys & Aliens would be a sure thing. But you’d be wrong. Well, half wrong.

The film kicks off with Jake Lonergan (Craig) coming to in a desert with no memory and a strange sci-fi bracelet stuck to his arm. It’s not long before the local not-so-friendly posse rolls around to help Jake prove that he hasn’t forgotten how to kick arse, then it’s off to the local town of Absolution to get acquainted with the locals.

After being patched up by the local preacher (Brown), Jake gets himself into strife with the son (Dano) of the big man in town, Woodrow Dolarhyde (Ford). Forgetful Jake is noticed as a wanted criminal, incapacitated by Ella Swenson (Wilde) and thrown in the back of a prison coach. Dolarhyde wants to exert his own brand of Old West justice on Jake’s hide but before he can, the unthinkable happens: aliens attack.

Of course, this is the premise of the film, but Favreau seems to have a hard time making the western and sci-fi genres gel. Westerns that are done right are all about simple stories, an emphasis on a core character arc and a slow burn with a couple of shoot-outs thrown in for good measure to maintain audience interest until the final showdown. Whereas great sci-fi films of the alien invasion variety are generally fast-paced affairs with plenty of action and an epic fight at the end. Short of the similar end result, these two film genres are worlds apart.

Cowboys & Aliens uses the western genre as the foundation for its pacing, which means that whenever sci-fi conventions are thrown into the mix, it feels a little ‘off’. That’s not to say that the action set pieces are boring; far from it. In fact, the action and cinematography are two of the film’s best elements. It’s a really well-shot film.

Craig and Ford have the right amount of brooding chemistry, taking turns at showing who has the biggest balls and letting the audience know that they’re capable of carrying a film. Olivia Wilde’s character, on the other hand, is mostly forgettable in the first half and, ultimately, serving only as an audience exposition character past the halfway point. At two hours the film feels 20 minutes too long—this could have been remedied easily by removing Wilde’s character altogether without detriment to the film.

Most of all, Cowboys & Aliens suffers under the burden of implied expectation. With such an impressive team of talent on both sides of the camera, it makes you wonder how a novel merging of two established genres could end up all over the place. While Cowboys & Aliens doesn’t come close to being a contender for some of the worst films of 2011, it is unfortunately one of the most disappointing.

Cowboys & Aliens opens August 18

Review: Nathan lawrence

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