Cowboys & Aliens

Cowboys & Aliens, directed by Iron Man's Jon Favreau and loosely based on the Platinum Studios graphic novel of the same name, is a sci-fi/western mashup set in the Arizona Territory, 1873. The film follows Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), an amnesiac gunslinger who wakes up in the middle of nowhere with a futuristic gauntlet on his arm and no idea of how it got there.

Jake arrives in the town of Absolution where he comes to the aid of meek saloon keeper Doc (Sam Rockwell) who is being harassed by young thug Percy Dolarhyde (a scene-stealing Paul Dano) and his cronies (including Adam Beach). Jake is later approached by the beautiful, enigmatic Ella (Olivia Wilde) who knows much more about Jake's troubles than she possibly could. But before Jake can get any answers, Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) and his deputies come to arrest him. It turns out Jake is quite the outlaw who, although he has no memory of it, allegedly stole from the all-powerful local rancher (and Percy's badass dad) Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde

Before the Colonel can take Jake away to mete out punishment, distant lights signal the sudden and violent arrival of – you guessed it -- alien invaders. The brutal attack on Absolution plays out like an Old West Pearl Harbor. The alien ships destroy the town and abduct some of its inhabitants before Jake downs one of the spacecraft with his strange gauntlet. This otherworldly threat forces Jake and Dolarhyde to ally for the greater good, and – along with Ella, Doc, preacher Meachum (Clancy Brown) and Taggart's grandson, Emmett (Noah Ringer) – they ride out to rescue the townsfolk. Along the way, they also join forces with Apaches (led by Raoul Trujillo) who have encountered the aliens.

What's immediately apparent about Cowboys & Aliens is its tone. This isn't an ironic popcorn flick winking and nodding at its genre trappings. No, Cowboys & Aliens is a straightforward western, with all the elements that you'd expect to see in a classic oater --that is, until something literally out of this world happens. It's a largely dramatic western that just so happens to have sci-fi elements in it rather than a sci-fi film with cowboys. It's an important distinction and one that separates Cowboys & Aliens from goofy, anachronistic genre-benders like Wild Wild West and Jonah Hex
Steven Spielberg, Cowboys & Aliens could have just as easily starred John Wayne and Steve McQueen back in the day. Speaking of Spielberg, he served as an exec producer on this and his Close Encounters of the Third Kind has frequently been cited by Favreau as a tonal and visual inspiration for Cowboys & Aliens.