Movie Review: 'Cowboys & Aliens' some fun amid the cliches

The sci-fi-western-thriller "Cowboys & Aliens," currently showing at the Fandango Galaxy multiplex in Carson City, finally achieves what most studios have long sought, a film with five writers, much of whose script is simply explosions.

Yep, meaningless explosions leavened by some actors and horses. Not to mention Harrison Ford as Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde and Daniel Craig as the brooding visage Jake Lonergan designed to try to the film make sense. Doesn't quite succeed, but that didn't seem to matter to the packed house at the 2:15 matinee Friday.

Film starts with Jake finding himself lost in the desert with no memory and a funny sci-fi cuff on his wrist. He runs into three horsemen who prepare to shoot him, but he takes them down, dons one body's boots and pistol and rides off on his horse to Absolution, a New Mexico town that doesn't welcome strangers (from the looks of the place strangers might be just what is needed to shake things up).

Jake is witness to the bully Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano) harassing Doc (Sam Rockwell) and finally steps in. Percy is taken in by the sheriff as is Jake because he is an alleged bank robber. The Colonel arrives with his hired hands and stops the sheriff from sending the pair to the U.S. Marshall.

Then mysterious lights appear over the mountains and weird aircraft appear, shooting up things and taking up some citizens by ropes off to who knows where.

Much plot comes now as the Colonel teams up with Jake and his outlaw gang to rescue to roped citizens. They then team up with the local Apache to right the wrongs. Neat twist here, the Native Americans join the whites settlers to repel invaders of their lands.

Then there's Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) who totes a six-shooter over her long dress and eventually becomes the savior of it all, rising from the dead when her body is tossed on a campfire and she magically solidifies. In the nude, of course, but Jake is there with a handy blanket to spare us the trauma of total nudity. (This is sheer lunacy, a woman toting a gun in long skirts.)

Eventually the super posse finds that Alien spaceship, which is about the size of the Empire State building and by planting a bomb rile the aliens, which are sort of big spiders with bodies that open to reveal a pair of hands. The aliens jump around a lot but between the Apache arrows and posse six guns they are no match for the good guys. Eventually the space ship lifts off but explodes in early flight.

Well, there's some back story involved of Jake and his wife in a wrecked cabin, but it doesn't add anything. Craig is tough even when being beat up and Ford is the old pro here. Sam Rockwell is the tenderfoot who learns how to fire a gun.

This is a summer movie and isn't expected to be literate or make sense, but there is fun here, particularly when Jake jumps from his horse onto an attacking small spacecraft and sends it into a lake (homage to many such scenes from oaters of the past). Actually, much of the film exists as references to past Hollywood, just about the only solid footing around.

Go, ye, and enjoy a muddle of past, present and who knows future. You won't be enlightened but you probably will be amused. Thank Hollywood that it isn't in 3-D.

— Sam Bauman

Cast and crew
Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan
Harrison Ford as Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde
Olivia Wilde as Ella Swenson, an elusive traveler
Sam Rockwell as Doc, a Saloon owner in Absolution
Noah Ringer as Emmett Taggart, grandson of John Taggart
Paul Dano as Percy Dolarhyde, Woodrow's cowardly son
Clancy Brown as Meacham, a plain-spoken preacher
Keith Carradine as Sheriff John Taggart
Adam Beach as Nat Colorado, Colonel Dolarhyde's right-hand man
Abigail Spencer as Alice, Jake's lost love
Ana de la Reguera as María, Doc's wife
Walton Goggins as Hunt, a bandit
Julio Cesar Cedillo as Bronc, a bandit
David O'Hara as Pat Dolan, Lonergan's former gang-member
Raoul Trujillo as Chiricahua Apache chief, Black Knife
Brendan Wayne as Deputy Lyle

Directed by: Jon Favreau
Produced by: Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci, Scott Mitchell Rosenberg
Screenplay by: Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby
Story by: Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Steve Oedekerk
Based on Cowboys & Aliens by: Scott Mitchell Rosenberg
Music by: Harry Gregson-Williams
Cinematography: Matthew Libatique
Editing by: Dan Lebental
Studio: DreamWorks Pictures, Relativity Media, Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by: Universal Pictures (USA)
Paramount Pictures (International)
Running time: 118 minutes