Cowboys & Aliens: It's really quite good.

In the tradition of Snakes on a Plane, Cowboys & Aliens utilizes titular clarity to make explicit what it is all about. In deviation from Snakes on a Plane, though, Cowboys & Aliens delivers more than simply Cowboys and Aliens. This is a well-shot, well-acted, solid summer film that strives beyond the requirements of its title to deliver a cinematic experience the totality of which will cause any reasonable person to conclude, “That was much better than I was expecting.” It’s like...you know how at the end of Constantine you thought, "That film was better than it deserved to be”? Cowboys & Aliens is like that. You go in expecting goofy shit, yet receive something that was worth your time and money. Plus, the dialog contains enough pauses that it will one day serve for a nice Rifftrax.

[Spoilers from this point on.]

Cowboy Daniel Craig awakens alone in the desert with both a large metal bracelet and amnesia (Read that ‘amnesia’ in the way MA17 / Hedonism Bot would say it). He makes his way to a town, whereupon the town’s sheriff recognizes Craig to be a fiendish outlaw and so apprehends him. As the townsfolk gather to watch Cowboy Craig’s imprisoned departure, aliens attack, since, well, that’s what the title promised us. The aliens cattle rustle away most of the town’s inhabitants before Cowboy Craig realizes that his handy-dandy bracelet doubles as a kick-ass plasma cannon and he guns down one of the alien ships. Realizing that the arm-gun provides them with a fighting chance, they embark upon a pursuit of the aliens to rescue the captured townsfolk.

Up to that point we’re good. But then there’s Olivia Wilde, whose character serves as an incredibly sexy foundation for the film’s MacGuffin.

See, Cowboys & Aliens tries to be more than just Snakes on a Plane, tries to be more than the cinematic execution of a novel idea. In many respects it succeeds at being more than “Cowboy James Bond and Cowboy Angry Han Solo / Indiana Jones fight aliens”. But it strives beyond its titular promises by way of Olivia Wilde’s character, who, sadly, just fails to make any god-damned sense at all. She is the plot device by which the Cowboys and the Indians recognize their commonality and so combine their forces against the aliens. It’s supposed to be an inversion of that classic motif of cowboys versus Indians, us versus them, by portraying the cowboys and Indians as the us, and the aliens as the them. Yet to get this team going, we need a common resource to serve as the point of conflict. What that resource turns out to be is, well, here’s the dialog, as I remember it:

Cowboy Harrison Ford: What do they [the aliens] want?

Olivia Wilde: They want your gold.

Cowboy Harrison Ford: (Flustered) But that’s…that’s ridiculous!

Olivia Wilde: Yeah, the aliens are just as surprised as you are.

Yeah, the aliens are trying to steal our gold. And Olivia Wilde is a shapeshifting alien from another planet, whose gold was stolen, and so she came to earth to stop the bad aliens from stealing more gold. She’s like a sexy version of Ron Paul…or something.

Ok. That part is stupid. I’ll grant you that the plot, with respect to the aliens being intergalactic claim jumpers, is kind of retarded.

But if you ignore the stupid shit, what remains is some spectacular acting, compelling character development, and, you know, cowboys fighting aliens. Harrison Ford is great and Daniel Craig once again disappears into a character to deliver a spectacular performance. The film also offers well-crafted moments of peripheral character development. From the orphaned child’s transition into manhood, to various characters overcoming previous adversities, the movie does some things quite well. And there’s a dog that follows Craig around being all doggy and awesome. I mean, that’s cool, right? He’s a cowboy dog. And he kinda fights an alien at one point.

Ok, you’re still stuck on the aliens thievin’ our gold, aren’t you? Well, what if I tell you that Olivia Wilde is, at one point, wet, in a very tight-fitting, light-colored dress? Will that make it up to you? Plus there’s this:



She has really pretty eyes. And she's single now.

Look, it’s a good movie that happens to contain a stupid plot element. Everything else is quite, surpringly, well done! They fight some aliens, they learn some lessons, Olivia Wilde gets wet, and a dog runs around being great. It’s a nice, fresh take on classic westerns that rehumanizes the genre by pitting humans against aliens rather than pitting white humans against not-quite-as-white humans. It’s a tale of humanity versus non-humanity, with Olivia Wilde as a sexy, shapeshifting alien who is there for exposition, plot points, and boobs.

I give Cowboys & Aliens one cowboy dog out of a possible no cowboy dogs.