Like every other tent pole movie released this summer, “Cowboys and Aliens” manages to be passably entertaining while it’s on the screen, but then it fades from memory the moment the credits roll. From “Thor,” to “Super 8,” to “Captain America,” to “Cowboys and Aliens,” it’s been the same story since May. That’s a shame, because “Cowboys and Aliens” had the potential to be great.
Consider the pedigree of the movie. It has James Bond and Indiana Jones! Or Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, if that’s how you want to look at it. Either way, “Cowboys and Aliens” has two phenomenal leading men, both of whom do good work in the movie. The spark is back in Ford’s eyes for the first time in years, and Craig inhabits his character in the way only a great actor can. Plus, they have decent chemistry. “Cowboys and Aliens” also has a proven director in Jon Favreau, the helmsman behind “Iron Man.” OK, Favreau also directed “Iron Man 2,” but despite having an uneven history, he knows his stuff.
I especially love the opening shot in which Favreau does a slow pan across a desolate Western landscape. Just as my eyes were starting to peer into the distance, Craig sits up in a start, bringing my attention back to the foreground. Favreau then pans to one side of Craig to reveal out-of-focus figures approaching from the distance. Without breaking the shot, he establishes location and solitude, and then introduces a threat. Favreau knows how to use the space available to him.
Then there’s the story, which could provide the backbone for a good western. Craig plays Jake Lonergan, which made me think of “alone again.” That’s a good description for his character. Lonergan wakes up in the desert with no memory of who he is, how he got there, or what the metallic device locked around his wrist does. He then makes his way to the nearest town, a hardscrabble assortment of clapboard buildings located in the middle of nowhere. There, he runs into a lot of people who know who he is. They’re not too fond of him, though, especially Woodrow Dolarhyde, a rancher who runs the town with an iron fist.
Although Ford’s Dolarhyde has the stock unpleasantness common to most villainous ranchers in Westerns, his reasons for wanting Lonergan are reasonable: Lonergan stole his gold and he wants it back. Just when it looks like that’s where “Cowboys and Aliens” is heading, aliens show up. It’s a jarring interruption. As the marshal is packing Lonergan into a stagecoach to be hauled off to federal authorities, small ships appear in the night sky and start lassoing the residents with chains. During the attack, the device on Lonergan’s wrist springs to life and shoots down one of the aliens. Then someone puts a plug in the pilot of the ship, and the creature runs into the night. The next thing you know, the survivors have made plans to follow the creature and rescue their kin.
I could spend the rest of this column writing “the next thing you know” and not come close to describing everything that happens in “Cowboys and Aliens.” The movie had five writers, and you can sense all of them cramming their ideas into the picture. The next thing you know, Lonergan runs into his old posse, and trouble ensues. The next thing you know, Indians materialize out of tumbleweeds, and trouble ensues. The next you know, the group comes across the alien base ship, and trouble ensues. The next thing I knew, my interest had waned.
It’s possible the glut of writers was also behind issues with character development. Early on, someone ominously says Ford’s character knows how to kill a man slowly, but as the movie progresses, Dolarhyde’s heart goes through a meat tenderizer. It would have been more interesting if the writers had allowed Ford to go all the way to the dark side.
Still, “Cowboys and Aliens” is a great looking picture with enough big screen entertainment value to make it worth seeing at a theater.
Rated PG-13 for intense violence, some partial nudity, and a brief crude reference. Two-and-a-half stars out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.