Directed by Jon Favreau
(PG-13)
**
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This genre mash-up is “more a mush-up, an action yarn aiming to be both science fiction and Old West adventure but doing neither all that well,” said David Germain in the Associated Press. “Really, the only clever thing about Cowboys & Aliens is the basic idea itself.” That idea is to let the cameras roll as a band of 19th-century cowboys, led by Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, join in battle against aliens that are abducting the citizens of a dusty Western town. The movie delivers on at least some levels, said Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle. It can be fun moment to moment, and Ford is an “inexhaustible source of delight” as he seemingly relishes the chance to play up his cranky side. Though Craig is strong too—as the embodiment of a “tight-lipped cowboy hero”—the stars’ gameness is not enough, said Claudia Puig in USA Today. With a plot so cliché-ridden that almost no scene plays as a surprise, Cowboys & Aliens “sinks into formula as if built on quicksand.” Unfortunately, “sometimes ideas that sound inspired in pitch meetings don’t transfer to the screen.”
