Movie Review: Gimmicky "Cowboys and Aliens" Disappoints

Most of the fun in " Cowboys and Aliens " is in its title, which turns out to be no more than a gimmick to get people to fill the theaters. The movie itself, a mash-up of the western and science fiction film genres, is enjoyable at times, but in the end is nothing more than an unoriginal, disappointing, and'"dare I say it?'"stupid wannabe blockbuster.

Directed by Jon Favreau, "Cowboys and Aliens" takes place in the old West. Daniel Craig plays a man who wakes up in the middle of the desert with a strange metal bracelet clasped to his wrist and no clue who he is or how he got there. He wanders into a nearby town and finds his picture with the name Jake Lonergan posted on wanted signs for various crimes he supposedly committed. But just as the sheriff is about to haul him out to the federal marshal, a group of spaceships attacks the town, setting fire to the buildings and abducting various inhabitants, an event that Jake's mysterious bracelet reacts to. Curious to know who he is and where he came from, Jake sets out with a group of the townspeople looking to save their abducted kin (actually, there are Indians who have about an equal screen presence too, but who wants to see a movie called "Cowboys and Indians and Aliens"?).

Among Craig's costars in this movie are Sam Rockwell, who plays the town doctor/bartender who can't shot worth a darn, and Olivia Wilde, who plays Ella, a woman who is desperate to know where Jake came from because her people were also taken away by the spaceships. But the most prominent presence is that of Harrison Ford, who plays Woodrow Dolarhyde, the tough former colonel and cattle baron who keeps the town in the money. Like the premise of the movie, Ford's presence feels like nothing more than a gimmick to sell the film. He does little more than grumble at various points throughout the movie. Craig is always fun to watch in an action hero role, but his wavering accent is distracting and the character he plays hovers between the detachedness of The Man with No Name and something more passionate.

The movie starts off interesting enough, but once the posse forms to go get those nasty aliens, the plot just goes downhill. The aliens are not all that interesting, and their actual reason for coming to Earth and abducting humans is even more absurd. Some of the action scenes are fun, but they are certainly not awe-inspiring.

Apparently, the makers of "Cowboys and Aliens" thought that the movie's intriguing premise would be enough to make it a success, sacrificing an interesting story and characters in the process. Guess what? They were wrong.

1 1/2 out of 5 stars. Runtime: 118 minutes. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of western and sci-fi action and violence, some partial nudity and a brief crude reference.