Cowboys & Aliens (PG-13)
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This is one of those movies where one gets the sense the main reason for its existence is its title (kind of like Snakes on a Plane). Or, more than the title, the concept just seems cool. I mean, cowboys are cool, aliens are cool, why not mash up the two genres? Actually, I guess it's based on a graphic novel that I've never read and don't recall ever having heard of. I might like to read it someday, and there's a chance I'd end up liking it more than the movie, but I did like the movie. It wasn't a big success critically, and financially it didn't do much more than recoup its budget (though considering how much it cost to make, that's still pretty impressive). But I feel like it deserves a bit more respect. It's not a bad movie, though it definitely could have been better. (Some critics might scoff at the idea of sci-fi westerns to begin with, and if that's the reason they didn't like it, then they're wrong.) The movie is much more heavily weighted toward the Western genre than the sci-fi genre, whereas I would have preferred it if it were more balanced between the two. I think it actually works pretty well as a Western, but the sci-fi part is kind of weak. My feeling is that it would have been better if the aliens had been more than just monsters. The sci-fi aspect is more in the action/horror vein of things like the "Aliens" franchise, which I think subverts some of the potential allegorical themes inherent in the movie's concept. (Aliens invading Earth is a lot like Europeans invading the Americas.) But it does kind of make sense, since the people in the movie have no concept of "aliens," so they just think of them as some kind of demons. And of course the aliens provide a common enemy for cowboys & Indians, who would normally be enemies of each other. (Which is itself probably a punnish inspiration for the title, "Cowboys & Indians" being a classic movie subgenre.)

Anyway, it begins with a man (played by Daniel Craig) waking up in the desert, having no memory, but a strange wound in his side, and an even stranger mechanical device on his wrist. He makes his way into the town of Absolution, where he is befriended by the local preacher (Clancy Brown). He also soon makes an enemy of a local cattle baron named Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), after an altercation with the man's reckless son, Percy. Meanwhile, the town's sheriff, John Taggart (Keith Carradine), recognizes the stranger from a wanted poster. It turns out he's an outlaw named Jake Lonergan (which explains why he's such a badass fighter). Things are about to come to a head when Dolarhyde rides into town with his ranch hands, trying to force the release of his son, who was going to be sent to Santa Fe to stand trial. He also wants Lonergan released to him, so he can exact revenge for having previously been robbed. But before the two sides can start fighting, the town is suddenly attacked by alien aircraft, and several townsfolk are abducted, including Percy.

So, Dolarhyde, Lonergan, the sheriff, the preacher, a woman named Ella (Olivia Wilde), a saloon owner named Doc (Sam Rockwell), a kid named Emmett (the sheriff's grandson), and Dolarhyde's men (chiefly an Indian orphan he'd raised, named Nat) team up to track down the "demons" and get the townsfolk back. (The abductees also include Doc's wife, Maria.) Um... there may have been others in the posse, I'm not sure. And it's possible the sheriff was one of the abductees rather than a member of the posse, I really couldn't tell. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say that in the end, the good guys defeat the aliens and get the townsfolk back, and I got the impression Emmett's grandfather was among them, which confused me. I tend to suck at remembering faces and various plot points and stuff. But anyway, along the way, the posse is eventually joined by Jake's old gang, and by Indians, though both groups were initially antagonistic toward the posse. But as I said, the aliens became a common enemy. We also learn something surprising about Ella. And Jake eventually regains his memories, and we get an explanation of how he acquired the wound and the gadget on his wrist (which turns out to be a powerful weapon, without which the posse would have had no chance of defeating the aliens).

That's all I want to say about the plot, but the cast was really good, the characters and story were decent, the action was good, and basically it was a fun movie. Far from a perfect mashup of Western and sci-fi, but definitely not bad.