"Cowboys and Aliens", a film directed by John Favreau ("Iron Man"), opened last weekend to the sum of $36.2 million. I don’t particularly like westerns or alien films, but I found the storyline compelling enough to keep me interested.
The film stars Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Olivia Wilde and is set in a small American town in 1873. It opens on Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), who wakes up in the desert with no shoes, a photo of a woman and a metal cuff on his left wrist. After realizing he has lost his memory, he gets a horse and rides into Absolution, Arizona. Once in the city, Lonergan comes to realize he is wanted for stealing gold from a Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). He is chained inside a stagecoach headed for Santa Fe when the first lights appear in the sky.
Once in range of the spaceships, the cuff activates and Lonergan shoots his way out of the coach. The ships begin capturing the townspeople and Lonergan shoots one of the crafts down using the weapon attached to his wrist. The next morning, Dolarhyde leads a group of men and one woman, Ella (Olivia Wilde), to track the abducted citizenry.
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The posse eventually encounters a tribe of Native Americans, who almost kill the lot when Ella reveals a secret: (SPOILER ALERT!) she is an alien. The same creatures now on Earth also destroyed her home planet, and, she says, they are here to harvest Earth’s gold.
One of the more interesting aspects of the film is how the people living in 1873 try to classify and live with the reality of aliens and their technology. Earthlings from the Wild West choose to call the aliens "demons" for lack of a better word. When a spaceship captures Ella, Lonergan jumps on to save her and they both revel in the experience of flying once they are safely on the ground.
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The film focuses on the ‘Cowboys’ world and their storyline is the most developed. The aliens in the film are lacking compared to other recent alien films, but overall the movie was enjoyable, especially if you like an unusual narrative with a bit of mystery.
Cowboys and Aliens is showing at the Regal Cinemas Kingstowne Stadium 16 theater. Showtimes are: 11:00 a.m., noon, 1:40 p.m., 2:40 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:20 p.m., 7:15 pm., 8:00 p.m., 10:05 p.m. and 10:40 p.m.
