Cowboys & Aliens a Bore

You’d think a movie called Cowboys and Aliens could at least hold your attention--but though the acting is good, there’s not much else to keep things interesting.

• The film is “chockfull of elements from classic oaters—a posse, a dusty round-up, saloon stand-offs—as well as monster flick staples like abductions, experiments and explosions, and still nothing very exciting happens,” writes Joe Neumaier in the New York Daily News.

• Sure, “it looks slick, pricey and starry—Indiana Jones teams up with James Bond for a gunfight with space demons,” notes Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. “But even Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig can't save a movie that's all concept, no content.”
• Director Jon Favreau “wavers uncertainly between goofy pastiche and seriousness in a movie that wastes its title and misses the opportunity to play with, you know, ideas about the western and science-fiction horror,” observes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times.
• But the Hollywood Reporter calls the movie a “solid success. For a tentpole Comic-Con movie, this one devotes a gratifying amount of time to character,” writes Kirk Honeycutt.