Cowboys & Aliens
Okay seriously, folks– what’s with all the hating on “Cowboys & Aliens?” It’s true that every significant name behind the scenes that made this comic book adaptation happen has done better work, and look, Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford are into this for the paycheck, not the creative intrigue. But Jon Favreau’s film is wonderfully, energetically, pulpy fun from the first frame to the end credits. If you’re worried if we have another “Wild Wild West” on our hands, fret not– Kenneth Branagh is no where near this film.
The most important thing I want to get into is the melding of sci-fi and western archetypes. Thankfully, “Cowboys & Aliens” is more western than sci-fi; I can imagine fans of Joss Whedon’s “Firefly” being very happy as they leave the theatre. Favreau and his army of screenwriters (please don’t make me list them all) don’t overexplain the existence of these aliens, called “demons” by the characters, that is the right way of doing it, allowing us to accept these two genres as coexisting. Besides, isn’t part of the idea behind science fiction the notion that something extraordinary happens that makes the characters question the nature of their universe? True, Favs and co. don’t have their characters ask the “big questions,” but we definitely feel their uncertainty when the first alien crafts fly overhead.
Just as vital to the film’s success is that Favreau and his collaborators create a believable Old West setting. This isn’t like in “Back to the Future Part III,” where the western setting was a gimmick– up until the initial alien attack, this could just as easily be a film out of the work of John Ford or Clint Eastwood. There are lawmen and desperadoes, culture clashes between roughneck white men and the spiritual Indians, and an old-fashioned saloon fight and a group of bandits who try to pull off a robbery when our heroes are tracking the aliens who have stolen some of their friends and loved ones. It’s all cliche, but it’s handled in a technically proficient and narratively entertaining way by Favreau and co.
All that being said, the most important reason this film works is because the cast believes it; if the actors didn’t buy into it, this film would be a ridiculous disaster. It wasn’t enough that Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan, a notorious criminal who wakes up in the middle of the desert with no memory of what happened and a strange metal bracelet on his wrist, and Harrison Ford as Col. Dolarhyde, a local businessman and Civil War veteran who controls the town of Absolution with an iron fist, simply play riffs on their action hero personas; it’s vital that we understand these characters, their pasts, and what drives them to make the decisions they make. True, neither Craig nor Ford are the most animated people, but they help us accept the unbelievable scenarios that unfold, and they have a great supporting cast to help with that, including: Sam Rockwell as a meek bartender; Keith Carradine as Absolution’s sheriff, who doesn’t have much power when Dolarhyde is in town; Paul Dano as the Colonel’s immature, impulsive son, Percy; Adam Beach as one of Dolarhyde’s employees, who is tasked with keeping an eye on Percy; and Olivia Wilde as Elle, a young woman who seems to know more about these “demons” than the other people in town. “Cowboys & Aliens” isn’t dealing with dramatic themes and storylines like this summer’s best films have (think “X-Men: First Class,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” “Midnight in Paris,” and even the flawed “The Tree of Life”), but it has more than enough action and imagination to entertain in a way that we don’t see nearly enough nowadays. True, cowboys and aliens aren’t natural on-screen antagonists, but for two hours, Jon Favreau makes you believe they belonged together all along.
