cricketbat Cowboys & Aliens is fun. It could have been better, but it also could have been much, much worse. I like the original premise, the visual effects are impressive (I loved the alien attacks) and the acting isn't bad, either. However, this film is flat and predictable. I know they deliberately tried to avoid campy-ness, but I wonder if this movie would have been better with a little dose of humor.

Stevieboy666 Aliens have landed in the American Wild West to obtain gold & kidnap a few locals. Good job James Bond, I mean a ripped Daniel Craig, is on hand to take them on along with Harrison Ford and a motley bunch of bandits, Indians & town folk. With it's somewhat silly title I expected this to be a comedy, and while there are a few funny one liners in the script it is sadly played straight. In fact it's probably too scary for younger audiences. Big budget, big names but after a promising start I thought that it flatlined until the action packed finale, by which time I'd lost a lot of interest. I watched this at home on my 28" TV, no doubt it would have been far better on the big screen but at least I didn't pay for the privilege.

winopaul Mixing two B-movie genres does not give you an A movie. It gives you a lousy B movie, if that. Pretty much a set-piece action-porn flick, but with a huge budget. I heard about this reading on Favreau's movie Chef, a much better use of your time and his money. I also read somewhere that Favreau was mad at some famous actor who dissed this movie when it came out, as if that could have really accounted for the flop. No, all of SAG praising this turkey would not have made it watchable.Because Hollywood types live in this make-believe netherworld they have no idea how real humans beings would behave. They also have little understanding of how aliens would behave. Here is a realistic re-write. Big alien ship lands in the desert. OK they start drilling for gold, lets allow that stupidity. The Indians are a little freaked. The aliens start grabbing up a few Indians to eat, mmmmmm red meat. Then as they scout around, they notice the giant cattle ranch. Cattle are way meatier than Indians so they take all the cattle and start eating them. This would actually provide some interesting dynamic, when the big-man-on-campus cattle baron has all his cattle taken away. Suddenly he has no wealth, no power, no jobs. Lets see how people treat him then. Now he might have a reason to go fight the aliens. He sure would have not risked his life for his milquetoast son.As the aliens quietly mine for gold and munch on cattle, the locals work themselves into a lather. The aliens don't have to abduct anyone to do anal probing, they know all they need to from the first few Indians they ate. Stick a giant claw into a human and he dies. Research complete. Let's eat.OK, OK, so the townspeople and Indians join together and attack the Alien spaceship. Since these creatures have the capacity for interstellar travel, they sure don't need to engage in hand-to-hand combat. No, they just zap every human in about 3 minutes and the humans are all dead. Also, since the Aliens have surely mastered genetics, they don't look like crude creepy turtle-people. They all look like TV newscasters, all of them. So with their chiseled features and great enunciation, slowly but surely the audience begins to sympathize with them, instead of those dirty townspeople or savage Indians.So by the time the movie ends, we are delighted the TV newscaster aliens have killed all the humans, eaten all the cattle, and taken all the gold. Based on this level of narcissism and rapaciousness, we will no doubt nominate them to political office where they can start wars to kill more humans and graft more gold.Roll credits.I once read that the writers of a situation comedy reach creative bankruptcy when they do the "amnesia episode". I agree, so that aspect has to go. Also the alien-as-pretty-girl trope. That way you don't get distracted for 12 minuets wondered "How the hell did she get here?!" It is already a completely ridiculous premise, so chopping up the timeline just makes it more confusing. Straighten out the timeline, like a good B-movie. Fire all the high-dollar actors. Replace Daniel Craig with some young teen idol. I don't know who that is these days, but like DeCaprio 20 years ago. One star, one big paycheck. Cut the casting budget. Five townspeople, five Indians, three aliens. No dogs or kids, its tough enough having horses on set.20 million budget, 85 million domestic gross. Plenty of action figure tie-ins. Maybe a ride at Universal Studios where you ride a mechanical horse up to the spaceship and then get tasered. Legal has to work out some kinks, but I think it would really go big. Anything would better than this movie, anything.(Special tip o' the hat to the programmers at IMDb who won't let me write B + B = B- in the title, since they think it is shouting.)

michelvega I saw this movie when released for television. Considering the title, I expected to change channels pretty fast. What's more, I'm no fan of Daniel Craig. But, surprisingly, I enjoyed it all the way to the end. Of course, it's all very silly and predictable, but such comments would apply to a whole lot of movies out there. I'm actually more amazed by the critics here about the film. I don't know how such a movie deserve a 400 words or so critique, especially if the conclusion was 0 star. I'm told the writers couldn't come up with a good story, or that the actors were so and so Well, it's not Casablanca for sure, or Gone With The Wind. It's just a movie, entertaining, leave your mind in the lobby style and laugh in the wrong places if you must. Bring in the Aliens, the cowboys and the Indians, six shooters, arrows, lances, ray guns and what not. In my opinion all the superheros movies out there are just as predictable and silly. And for once, for all it's worth, I even enjoyed Daniel Craig this time around.