COWBOYS & ALIENS
Directed by: Jon Favreau
Written by: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby
Starring: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde, Paul Dano, Keith Carradine, Adam Beach, Clancy Brown
Superhero Summer may be over, but the summer blockbuster season has room for one, last comic-book adaptation, COWBOYS & ALIENS, a sci-fi/western mash-up helmed by IRON MAN director Jon Favreau (the television ads, trailers, and posters only consider IRON MAN relevant, so we should too). Originating in an image of a cowboy firing his 19th-century weapon at a pursuing UFO, COWBOYS & ALIENS languished in development for more than a decade until director Ron Howard and his producing partner at Imagine Entertainment, Brian Grazer, became involved, ultimately hiring Favreau, fresh off back-to-back commercial hits (IRON MAN I and II) to direct and Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, action stars both, as co-leads. The involvement of Favreau, Craig, and Ford (among others), however, wasn’t enough to elevate COWBOYS & ALIENS beyond a mediocre, predictable, ultimately unengaging script credited to five screenwriters.
A Stranger With No Name (Daniel Craig), wakes up in the literal middle of nowhere alone, confused, befuddled. The stranger can’t remember his name or how he ended up miles away from the nearest town or homestead. He can’t remember how he acquired a futuristic-looking gauntlet that seems glued to his wrist. When, inevitably, a group of dirty, unkempt, ornery rustlers and scalpers emerge from the bush and challenge him, his martial instincts kick in. Within seconds, the men are sprawled in the dry desert dead, presumed dead. Not one to stand on ceremony or respect the newly dead, the Stranger With No Name acquires the accoutrements of a 19th-century gunfighter: a functioning pistol, chaps (for style and comfort), a vest (ditto), a dirt-encrusted, but still wearable, cowboy hat, and most importantly, a healthy horse to carry him back to the nearest approximation of western civilization.
The stranger rides to the nearest town, Absolution, where he meets Meacham (Clancy Brown), a shotgun-toting frontier preacher. Meacham gives in to his Christian nature, putting down his shotgun long enough to clean the stranger’s wounds, including an odd incision in his side (did someone say, Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior?). Not one to just hang back and let the local saloon keeper, Doc (Sam Rockwell), settle a long-simmering dispute with Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), the reckless, sociopathic son of Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a wealthy cattleman. The stranger’s interference brings him to the attention of Absolution’s laconic lawman, Sheriff John Taggart (Keith Carradine), and more importantly, gives the stranger a name, Jake Lonergan. Unfortunately for Lonergan, he’s a wanted outlaw with a sizable bounty on his head.
Even though the alien tech is a mystery to the characters, it won’t be for audiences; likewise with the rote revelation of the aliens’ nefarious intentions or their beady-eyed appearance, hidden, smartly, from view in the trailers and TV ads, that resembles the alien in SUPER 8 or the monster in CLOVERFIELD. When alien scout ships arrive moments before the sheriff transports Jake and Bryce to the closest federal marshal, Jake activates the gauntlet, saving some, but not all, of the townspeople. The aliens kidnap the rest, taking them to their base hidden in the nearby mountains. What the aliens want with the kidnapped townspeople is one of two questions (the other being what the aliens actually want) that COWBOYS & ALIENS eventually answer. The answers, however, are from original or ingenious. Only how the technologically inferior human characters will take on and defeat the technologically superior aliens keeps COWBOYS & ALIENS from devolving into complete tedium.
Sadly, it took five credited screenwriters, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby (Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, and Steve Oedekerk share story credit) to develop COWBOYS & ALIENS from a simple concept into a full-fledged screenplay. Writing-by-committee rarely, if ever, results in art, but on occasion, it does result in watchable, if ultimately forgettable summer entertainment. That’s exactly what Favreau’s screenwriters, combined with Favreau’s always competent, unimaginative direction, provide, nothing more and, quite possibly, something less, leaving moviegoers to admire, assuming they can, Matthew Libatique’s brilliant cinematography, a talented veteran cast of struggling to breathe life to a woefully underwritten script, and, of course, the best, albeit soulless, visual pyrotechnics that money can buy.
