Movie Review: Cowboys & Aliens

Mild spoiler alert: I’m going to be ranting about this movie a bit, and there will be mild spoilers. You have been warned.

I can pinpoint the exact scene when “Cowboys & Aliens” goes from a good movie to a mediocre one. There is a scene in the movie where Olivia Wilde’s character is snatched up by an alien flying machine. That machine has been damaged, and miraculously seems unable to climb above the level of a nearby gully. While it winds its way down the gully the suddenly-heroic main character rides his horse along the rim, and is able to jump on to the back of the alien craft to free the damsel in distress.

That was the moment when I went from interested in this movie to angry at it. The signs were there before then  that there might be trouble (this movie forgets the lesson of “Jaws” and shows it’s monster far too early), but before that scene I had been invested in the movie. From that moment  on it went from an interesting take on a basically preposterous premise to outright lazy.

I left the theater after watching Cowboys & Aliens angrier than I’ve been at a film in a while. It isn’t because it’s a bad movie. For the first half of the film Jon Favreau takes a premise that should not work under any circumstances and keeps us interested. What made me angry was that the film wastes its potential over the second half on tired cliche.

At the beginning of the film we are presented with three interesting main characters. There is Jake Lonergan (as played by Daniel Craig) the amnesiac antihero outlaw who has an unusual alien weapon clasped fast to his arm. There Colonel Woodrow Dollarhyde (Harrison Ford) a hard man who is cruel as a matter of habit, and whose sole redeeming feature seem to be the protective nature he takes towards his wastrel son. Finally there is the enigmatic Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde), a mysterious woman who takes a keen interest in Longergan because of his contact with the aliens.

All of them start and genuinely interesting, somewhat unique characters. By the end of the movie is manages to transform them into the two-dimensional characters we’ve seen everywhere else. Longergan is revealed as the outlaw with a heart of gold. Ella is revealed as little more than the damsel in distress (and a deus ex machina for the hero). Dolarhyde goes through a preposterous metamorphosis from a man scarred by war to everyone’s favorite uncle.

Every time Cowboys & Aliens gives up a secret it reduces the quality of the story. The aliens themselves go from overwhelmingly powerful and enigmatic to an inhuman equivalent to Star War’s Imperial Stormtroopers. Lonergan’s past is bliddingly obvious.The revelation of Ella’s actual nature is silly and aggravating.

The ultimate aim of the aliens is ridiculous. So is the means by which Lonergan becomes attached to his trademark weapon. Both are intended to be of interest, but instead only underscore the incompetence of the movie’s antagonists. I joked at the end of the film that Ewoks would come out to celebrate.

The movie isn’t a schlock-fest from beginning to end. Had it been I would have simply been disappointed. As it is the amount of potential it manages to squander over the back half of the movie just makes me angry.

I make no guarantees that you will have the same experience. Several reviews I’ve read have praised the movie. One reviewer I’ve read even put it at #2 of the best movies he’d seen this year.

It’s nowhere near that for me. Cowboys & Aliens was a good movie until it got lazy. After the halfway point I felt like I knew how every scene would end. I was seldom wrong but always disappointed.