Apparently critics exhausted themselves praising Captain Americanthat rancid stew of Nazi-busting WWII cliches warmed over and served up to us for the zillionth retching timeand now. Finally, the town has a gorgeous woman of mystery named Ella (Olivia Wilde). Cowboys and Aliens is a big mess, sure, but I don’t know what everybody’s screaming about, it’s still better than most of the other maggoty offal they’ve been serving at the multiplex all year long. There’s also a tough but kind preacher (Clancy Brown) and a boy determined to fight with the men (Noah Ringer).

In town, Percy makes trouble for the sheriff (Keith Carradine) and the tenderfoot saloon owner called Doc because he wears glasses (Sam Rockwell) Doc also has a Latina wife (Ana de la Reguera). Dolarhyde’s chief aide is a Native American (Adam Beach) who’s a much better man than Percy, but Dolarhyde won’t recognize that. Instead, it trots out as many western cliches as a TCM theme night: we have a Man With No Name (Daniel Craig, eventually revealed to be Jake Lonergan) who rides into a town dominated by all-powerful cattle baron Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his sadistic drunken son Percy (Paul Dano). Exhibit A is 'Cowboys & Aliens' which is a B movie idea if there ever was one, made with a blockbuster mentality that does not get either genre right.(By contrast, the Doctor Who episode 'A Town.

The main creative decision seems to have been to play against the jokey title that was the reason the project was bought in the first place–the movie has precious little humor, and never plays western conventions against the aliens-from-outer-space genre in any kind of entertaining, let alone provocative or ingenious, way. Despite all those cooks in the kitchen, the film manages to feel all of a piece, but it’s a curious piece.

Good the movie cowboys and aliens