If you have ever wanted to see a western and add the element of aliens then “Cowboys and Aliens” is the movie for you. The movie title sums up what it’s all about. However director John Favreau takes this movie and turns it into a crowd pleaser in all the right ways. All you need is a little Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, and some clever writing and you have a great summer blockbuster. The movie is actually a distilled spin-off from a comic book by Scott Mitchell Rosenburg. With a ton of writers and co-directors they were able to expand the comic world into an exciting cinema experience.

I loved every western cliche brought to the table in this flick. Everything from the mild mannered bartender who’s also a doctor, and doesn’t know how to shoot,but in the end does something heroic. To the bratty kid of a wealthy entrepreneur who thinks he can get away with anything, including shooting up the town. The surrogate, wide eyed boy, who you think at one point might cry out for Shane, and takes a liking to the faithful mutt that follows Craig’s character from the beginning. The gun totting preacher who has all the right words of encouragement. I mean this movie had every western cliche you could think of, and it was awesome.

The movie starts out with Daniel Craig waking up not knowing who he is, and finding his way to an old rickety mining town, or so it used to be.  The heat turns on when aliens all of a sudden start stealing people from this town, which by the way is the coolest way I’ve seen aliens abduct people yet. Thank God Craig’s character has an alien weapon attached to his wrist that he has no idea where it came from or how to really use it, but ends up destroying one of the alien crafts. Then everybody who’s left, after the menace leaves, decides to go after their loved ones with no idea what’s ahead of them.

Harrison Ford is a cranky old entrepreneur, wearing his timeless Indiana Jones hat and a surly attitude towards the aliens who take his son. He does his part well, and fits his cliche to the “T”, but looks run down like he was in the last Indiana Jones flick. I think he may be getting too old to play the action man he once was. Olivia Wilde looks great in western wear, but does not look she belongs in 1875, but who cares, she’s HOT! She does a fantastic job of revealing the threatened fate of humanity by giant greedy bug looking aliens.

All in all the premise of the movie stays strong and finishes great. The scripts comedy is sprinkled out evenly among the well-cast actors you would expect to see in a Favreau flick. “Cowboys and Aliens” get’s better and better as it goes on, befitting Favreau’s solid command of tone. The movie was not all about the graphics and the explosion sequences, but the one’s that were there were awesome. I would definitely give this movie an A.