How can you not get excited for a movie whose title is “Cowboys and Aliens”? Think about it. It’s a movie about cowboys fighting off alien invaders. Sounds cool right? Let’s also not forget to mention that “Cowboys and Aliens” was directed by Jon Favreau. He was the one who directed the 2008 superhero film “Iron Man” (A film I greatly admired). So by now you are probably thinking that a film with Cowboys, Aliens, and Favreau would be a fun summer blockbuster. However, “Cowboys and Aliens” is not that fun summer blockbuster everyone was anticipating. Despite its unique premise, it just comes across as average because of some cinematic flaws, because of those flaws “Cowboys and Aliens” will be considered one the bigger disappointments of 2011.

The film opens in the southwest during the 1870’s. Daniel Craig (aka James Bond) plays a man named Jake Lonergan who wakes up to find a metal device on his wrist.  He can’t remember how he got it, or why he is now stranded in the middle of nowhere. He wanders into the nearby town where he meets a cast of characters including the town preacher named Meacham (Clancy Brown), Saloon owner named Doc (Sam Rockwell), and the town bully named Percy (Paul Dano). Then there is Jake’s love interest, a woman named Ella who is played by Olivia Wilde.

Harrison Ford plays the grouchy and stern Colonel Woodrow Doyarhyde, and he shows up in town after his son Percy gets into trouble. However, just after he shows up to deal with his son, the aliens attack the town and start abducting the townspeople. So Jake and Woodrow lead a small group of cowboys to try and fight off the aliens.

Mixing the genre of western and sci-fi is a unique ambitious idea. However the execution of the sci-fi is where the film suffers, in contrast to the western genre where the film shines. The first act of the movie is where the film feels like an authentic western. Thanks to the convincing performances of Daniel Craig, who reminded me of Clint Eastwood and his famous spaghetti westerns as the “The Man with No Name”, and Harrison Ford as the grouchy Colonel. Plus the look of the film added to the authenticity of the picture, since there are great shots of western and desert landscapes that added an atmosphere of dusty, southwest grit.

Now you may ask, how about the sci-fi portion of the film with aliens attacking the cowboys?  This film doesn’t offer anything new to the alien invasion genre and just comes across as a ho hum generic invasion attack. All I have to say for the aliens themselves is that their designs are well crafted. It reminded me of a bigger creature from “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” crossed with some amphibian. Though their designs may seem fine, but they don’t have much personality beyond their desire to study humans and get gold from mines (oddly, with no reason given).

The action sequences only consist of explosions. This only happens when alien spacecrafts are shooting at the cowboys. Jon Favreau knew how to make action scenes exciting in “Iron Man” and its sequel “Iron Man 2”, but for some reason there is only minimal excitement in this picture. There are some moments of good action and stunts, but those moments are just too infrequent. There are some good moments of humor which I thought were funny at times.

Another complaint I have is with Olivia Wilde’s character Ella. I won’t say much but let’s just say that there is a surprise and when it is revealed, it is absurd. Even in a movie where cowboys are fighting aliens it still seems absurd. Sam Rockwell and Paul Dano do have some memorable work in their respective roles and they feel right in place.

“Cowboys and Aliens” could have been an inspired action film if the execution was better. It just comes across as a typical alien abduction film. Perhaps if they eliminated the alien part of the movie and just kept it a western I would have probably liked the movie more. The only other good thing I can say is that this film is not in 3-D. Today you see 3-D in every action film, but not this one.

**1/2| PG-13| 118 Minutes