'Cowboys And Aliens' (2011) Has Too Much Cowboys Not Enough Aliens [Review]

The title Cowboys and Aliens (2011) grabbed my attention, but it turns out the title was disappointingly accurate.

The idea of cowboys, with primitive weapons and limited scientific understanding, fighting highly-advanced aliens seemed to make the plot of the movie all by itself. So, what went wrong?

Directed by John Favreau, the movie stars Daniel Craig (Casino Royale) as a mysterious stranger who wakes up in the desert with no memory and a metal object clamped to his wrist. He quickly kills the three bounty hunters and heads to the nearby former mining town of “Abandon” where aliens have been kidnapping people.

The film follows him as he discovers who he is and how he’s connected with the alien abductions.

Daniel Craig, Olivia Wild, Sam Rockwell and Harrison Ford give great performances and there are some awesome fight scenes. The problem is the movie is so focused on the mystery of the characters we only get to know them an hour into the movie. This is great for a spaghetti westerns, but death in an action film. Watching someone being chased by an alien is only exciting if we want them to live.

Plus, while the cowboy stuff was well done we only get the aliens in the last half hour of the movie. They show up here and there through the film, they only really get focus during the climactic battle at the end. The mysterious aliens themselves turned out to be pretty interesting and I wish the plot had focussdmore on them and why they were there.

This one is fun for a few minutes, but drags on by the end. I give it two stars.

Does the title grab your attention? If you saw it, what did you think of Cowboys and Aliens?