Movie reviews

IN a way it’s almost a pity that Daniel Craig stars in Cowboys and Aliens (15A).

His brooding presence as Old West outlaw Jake Lonergan, which he undercuts with the occasional hint of a wryly knowing smile, offers at least one bona fide reason to stay with Jon Favreau’s film long after it has established itself as a Western that appears to be aiming for a Guinness Book of Records entry as the most clichéd Western ever made. Boozy preacher? Downtrodden bartender? Hell-raising rancher’s son? Check them off as you go, and then brace yourself for The Big Twist, as bloodthirsty aliens arrive to suck all the gold out of the planet. Unfortunately, the title rather gives away said twist; meanwhile, as a high-concept, genre-blending, nod-and-wink homage to the Western and the alien invasion flick, Cowboys and Aliens is a hollow exercise.

For all the neat period detail the message, ultimately, is that the Western is such a total bust these days that it needs nothing less than a full-blown alien invasion to spice things up. Harrison Ford, who plays the stereotypical ruthless rancher with all the passion of a dead oak, is reduced to snarling in impotent rage at the cartoonish and frankly offensive script. Essentially, it’s a one-joke movie that delivers its punchline far too early, a facile exercise in synthesising the commercial prospects of two of Hollywood’s most iconic genres to create a film that is significantly less than the sum of its parts.