Note: The following review contains some major spoilers. If you want to know nothing about the film until you see it, you may want to stop reading from here.
Jon Favreau is one of those directors that can handle more than one genre brilliantly. Making his major directorial debut with family comedy
Elf in 2004, he went on to direct sci-fi hits
Zathura (2005) and the first two
Iron Man films (2008/2010). His latest offering,
Cowboys & Aliens, mushes two very different genres (western and sci-fi) together, and adding great actors such as Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde in the lead roles, what could go wrong?
Cowboys & Aliens centers on Jake Lonergan (Craig), an outlaw who wakes up with no memory at all and a mysterious metal band on his wrist. Lonergan is wanted for stealing gold from Col. Dolarhyde (Ford), but during their face-off, alien ships start attacking the small town, kidnapping many people. The two then join forces with the local Indians (and other cowboys) in their battle with the aliens, and what follows is an epic showdown between the two forces.
First off, the major flaw with
Cowboys & Aliens is some very mediocre plot points. An obvious one is where Ella (Olivia Wilde) is mortally wounded in one scene, resurrected the next, and at the end sacrifices herself in an attempt to destroy the aliens' mother ship. It reminds me of what happened with Silver Fox in
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (which I assume all of you know about), and it's rather confusing (Especially for the general audience). Another plot point that isn't very bright is that the aliens wanted gold to power their machines (which they used on humans as some sort of guinea pigs). Gold isn't really the most obvious resource for machinery (the way it was used here, anyways). Although a minor flaw, the mashing of sci-fi with western style isn't really perfect (although it's pretty cool at the same time).
Despite the flaws, one of the best parts about the film is some of the acting the acting (some of which is mediocre at as well). Daniel Craig is excellent as Lonergan, and you could tell he's been working on that American accent of his. Harrison Ford has been one of my favorite actors of all time for a while now (After seeing his work in
Blade Runner, the original
Star Wars trilogy, and the
Indiana Jones series), and he does a great job as grumpy old Dolarhyde (even if it does seem a bit too much like an old
Indiana Jones at times). Olivia Wilde's okay as Ella, but as stated before, I didn't like how her character was used in the film. Sam Rockwell (who previously worked with Favreau in last year's
Iron Man 2 as Justin Hammer) is good as 'Doc', while Paul Dano does a very mediocre job as Percy, the Colonel's son. Common CBM actor Clancey Brown was also good as Meacham, the town's preacher.
Another strong point is the way that the aliens were portrayed (other than their wanting gold, of course). I won't bother giving a description, but I'll just say that they look really awesome, and seeing them in action sequences is highly entertaining. The final battle scene was definitely the best part of the film, with cowboys and Indians going head-on against the aliens.
Despite the strong points in the film, however, the flaws are too obvious. Despite the film being about two hours long, some characters didn't feel as developed as others (such as Ella and Percy Dolarhyde, both of whom seemed more like card board boxes compared to such characters as Lonergan and Col. Dolarhyde). Adding up all the aforementioned flaws, it makes the final product very rough around the edges. Which is very disappointing, since I had pretty high expectations for this (not even
Green Lantern was as disappointing as
Cowboys & Aliens).
In the end, however,
Cowboys & Aliens is a decent addition to the packed-in summer of 2011. It's fun and entertaining, but doesn't have as much substance as I would've liked. It also has its fair share of weak and solid acting, all within an action-packed adventure in the West. Hopefully Favreau's future projects will be as good as his work on
Iron Man and
Elf, but in the meantime, we have
Cowboys & Aliens - a mostly hit-and-miss project that has its high and its low points.
I rate
Cowboys & Aliens 3.5 out of 5 stars.