Director: Jon Favreau

Stars: Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, Olivia Wilde (more)

Release Date: July 29, 2011

Synopsis: A spaceship arrives in Arizona, 1873, to take over the Earth, starting with the Wild West region. A posse of cowboys are all that stand in their way.

Why We're Excited: Daniel Craig in the wild, wild, west, with a laser-ized arm, crazy gadgets, taking on violent aliens while wearing awesome pants? Count us in! Seriously, though, this looks to be one of the antidotes to sequel-itis this year, with Iron Man-helmer Jon Favreau on board, Harrison Ford striding alongside Craig, and some very cool source material in the 2006 graphic novel created by Platinum Studios.

Why We're Not: Whoa – is that six credited writers we see in the credits?! We’re surprised they had room for cowboys or aliens after WGA arbitration!

Trivia: Director Favreau was reportedly pressured to make the film 3D, but held his ground to keep it aggressively two-dimensional – in film format, that is.

In 1873, New Mexico Territory, an unnamed loner (Daniel Craig) awakens in the desert injured, with no memory, and a strange l band shackled to his wrist. He wanders into the small town of Absolution, where the local preacher, Meacham (Clancy Brown), treats his wound. After the stranger subdues Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano), who has been terrorizing the populace, Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) recognizes him as Jake Lonergan, a wanted outlaw, and tries to arrest him. Jake nearly escapes, but a mysterious woman named Ella Swenson (Olivia Wilde) knocks him out.
Percy's father, Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), a rich and influential cattleman, arrives with his men and demands that Percy be released to him. He also wants Jake, who stole Dolarhyde's gold. During the standoff, alien spaceships begin attacking the town, and Percy, the sheriff, and many townsfolk are abducted. Jake shoots down one ship with a device concealed in his wrist band, ending the attack.
Dolarhyde, Ella, and some townsfolk form a posse to track an alien that may have ejected from the downed ship. Jake, meanwhile, travels to an abandoned cabin, and in a flashback, recalls returning there with the gold just before he and a woman, Alice, were abducted by the aliens. Jake returns to join the posse. During the night, the alien they were tracking appears and kills Meacham.
By the next morning, most of the posse has deserted, and the others are attacked by Jake's former gang. Jake, who stole the gang's loot after their last heist, attempts to retake control, but fails. As he and the others flee, the aliens begin attacking again and Ella is seized. Jake jumps aboard the ship and attacks the alien pilot, causing the ship to crash, but Ella is mortally wounded.
Chiricahua Apaches capture the posse, blaming them for the alien attacks. As Ella's body is dumped on a fire, she is fully resurrected. Ella is actually an alien who traveled to Earth to help resist the invaders after they destroyed her homeworld. The aliens, who have been abducting humans to perform experiments on, are also mining gold to power their machines. They are not invulnerable, however: Jake's gauntlet can kill them, as well as stabbing and shooting, though the creatures are far stronger and more durable than humans and have superior . Ella claims Jake holds the secret to the aliens' whereabouts and says they must stop them before they exterminate all life on the planet. After taking Mescaline offered by the Indians, Jake recalls that Alice died in an alien experiment, but he escaped, inadvertently stealing the alien . He can also remember the aliens' hidden location.
Armed with this knowledge, the group, now led by Colonel Dolarhyde, prepares to attack the aliens' grounded mothership. Jake returns to his old gang and persuades them to join the fight. In a sneak attack, the humans breach the spaceship, forcing the aliens into a ground battle. Jake and Ella board the ship and free the captives, but Jake is captured. Dolarhyde rescues him and both men escape the ship after killing the alien leader. As the remaining aliens are taking off in their damaged craft, Ella sacrifices herself, destroying the ship using Jake's gauntlet.
Jake's memory partially returns, and some abducted townsfolk can recall their past, while others, including Percy Dolarhyde, cannot. Still a wanted man, Jake decides to leave; the sheriff and Dolarhyde say they will claim that he was killed. The citizens intend to rebuild the town with the expectation that the newly discovered gold mine will soon bring many new settlers.

Release

Cowboys & Aliens had its world premiere at the San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego on July 23, 2011.[39] It was commercially released in the United States and Canada on July 29, 2011, and in other territories in ensuing weekends.[40] Paramount Pictures International will[when?] also release the film in IMAX theaters around the world, as it did for Favreau's previous film Iron Man 2.[41]
Box Office Mojo forecast that Cowboys & Aliens would gross $95 million total in the United States and Canada. For the comparatively low figure, the website cited that the marketing had not contextualized the film effectively and that hybridized Western films like Jonah Hex and The Warrior's Way were not successful at the box office.[42] In territories outside the United States and Canada, the website forecast $140 million total, citing that American Western films are not historically popular, but that the premise of the alien invasion and the presence of international stars like Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford would generate interest.[43] In contrast, box office tracker Paul Dergarabedian said the film's combination of cowboy and extraterrestrial themes in particular would attract audiences. Dergarabedian also believed that audiences' familiarity with Craig as character James Bond would help the film.

Box office

On the opening day of Cowboys & Aliens, estimates showed that its opening day gross was $13.0 million and it came in second place to The Smurfs's opening day gross of $13.3 million. This was considered a surprise since Cowboys & Aliens was expected to be the clear winner for the weekend.[45] Estimates then showed Cowboys & Aliens and The Smurfs tied at the #1 spot for the weekend with $36.2 million each.[46] However, when the actual results for the weekend were announced Cowboys & Aliens won the weekend with $36.4 million just beating out The Smurfs, which grossed $35.6 million.[47] As of August 2011, the film has grossed $90,372,215 in the U.S. and Canada as well as $19,810,630 internationally bringing its worldwide total to $110,182,845.

Critical reception

Cowboys & Aliens was released to mixed reviews, earning 45 percent approval from 212 critics on review-aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes and garnering a score of 50 out of 100 from 41 critics on critic. CinemaScore polls reported that the average grade moviegoers gave the film was a B on an A plus to F scale.
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film, giving a summary that "It sounds kooky on paper but on the screen cowboys and aliens make beautiful, fun music together." Honeycutt felt that the success of the film's blend of aliens and western themes was due to "the determination by everyone involved to play the damn thing straight. Even the slightest goofiness, the tiniest touch of camp, and the whole thing would blow sky high. But it doesn't." Honeycutt appreciated the casting and performances in the film, giving particular mention to Ford, Wilde, and Craig. Criticism was given to the aliens however, which Honeycutt claimed "don't rate as characters", existing as "moving blobs you shoot at in a video game."[51] Variety's Peter Debruge echoed Honeycutt's sentiments that the "potential hamminess" of the premise is offset by the cast, particularly Craig through a "mix of ruthlessness and sensitivity." He considered however, that Wilde had the opposite effect, stating she "appears out of place among her grizzled co-stars". Debruge appreciated the attention paid to the roots of the two genres, saying "beneath all the state-of-the-art special effects beats an old-fashioned heart, one that prizes both of the genres in play" and concluded that "a canny blend of CG and practical effects serve the sci-fi elements well, while location shooting and Mary Zophres' form-fitting period duds make the West look its best."[52] The Village Voice praised the Western elements of the film as "lovingly" handled but felt the Sci-Fi aspects a "gimmick" and "much more standard fare" in comparison. The Village Voice appreciated Favreau's storytelling and singled out Ford for his performance, saying "Ford, enlivened by dude garb, seems to enjoy himself in front of a camera for the first time in decades".

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Roger Ebert positively received the film and cast, saying "as preposterous moneymakers go, it's ambitious and well-made. The acting from the large cast is of a high standard, Craig and Ford were more or less born into their roles, and director Jon Favreau actually develops his characters and gives them things to do, instead of posing them in front of special effects." He however lamented the film not being a pure Western, saying of the Aliens "there is more genuine suspense when [Percy Dolarhyde] starts shooting up the town than when countless aliens appear".[54] Salon's Andrew O'Hehir offered a mixed response, claiming the film to be well made and clever, and singling out Craig and Ford for their performances. O'Hehir was, however, critical of the combination of western and science-fiction elements, calling it "a mediocre western clumsily welded to a mediocre alien shoot-'em-up".
Slant's Nick Schager reacted negatively to the film, stating "Cowboys & Aliens mashes up genres with a staunch dedication to getting everything wrong, making sure that each scene is more inane than the one that preceded it"; giving the film one star out of four. Schager continued "Cowboys & Aliens's western accoutrements are
so false as to be stunning, with every steely-eyed glare from Craig's Man With No Memory, every confrontation between his Jake and Ford's grizzled Dolarhyde, and every silhouetted horseback ride across a sunset range seeming like a wan approximation of a familiar genre staple . . . Favreau's visuals have an inauthentic and bland blockbuster sheen, and his actors are similarly afflicted with a case of poseur-itis (Craig's affected silent-type glowering, Ford's gruff racism, or Wilde's blank, wide-eyed stares), failing to deliver a single believable line-reading or gesture."