It doesn’t feel like a story conceived by two children who decided to forgo their routine game of “Cowboys & Indians” and incorporate aliens into the mix instead. It’s not a rip-roaring, fast-paced adventure that expects you to check your brain at the box-office.

Adapted by five credited screenwriters from the Scott Mitchell Rosenberg authored comic, the film serves up an interesting-if-serious-minded genre experiment that works, despite some lingering feelings of disappointment for its lack of raw, popcorn-munching silliness.Īlas, this summer blockbuster doesn’t feel as “fun” as it perhaps should have. Jon Favreau left his director’s chair on the Iron Man franchise for this project, and he brings his usual technical craftsmanship to a picture whose genre awareness is shown through subtle, indirect references, while all the time allowing the film to be its own beast. As the title suggests, Cowboys & Aliens embraces a whole cinematic history of tropes from “alien invasion” and Westerns films, stripping down both genres to their most basic form into a deceptively unique amalgamation.

Cowboys and aliens review