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Subscribe to weekly newsletter » times & tickets in theaters Fandango Search movie The Change-Up showtimes and buy Cowboys & Aliens The Devil's Double tickets. The Future The Guard BY ROGER EBERT / July 27, 2011 Rise of the Planet of the Apes The Road to Nowhere about us "Cowboys & Aliens" has The Robber without any doubt the most About the site » cockamamie plot I've cast & credits more current releases » witnessed in many a moon. one-minute movie reviews Site FAQs » Here is a movie set in 1873 Jake Lonergan Daniel Craig with cowboys, aliens, Woodrow Dolarhyde Harrison Ford Contact us » Apaches, horses, Ella Swenson Olivia Wilde still playing spaceships, a murdering Email the Movie Doc Sam Rockwell Answer Man » stagecoach robber, a Nat Colorado Adam Beach Another Earth preacher, bug-eyed Percy Dolarhyde Paul Dano The Art of Getting By monsters, a bartender Sheriff Taggart Keith Carradine Attack the Block on sale now named Doc, a tyrannical Bad Teacher rancher who lives outside a Beautiful Boy Universal Pictures presents a film town named Absolution, his Beginners directed by John Favreau. Written worthless son, two sexy A Better Life women (one not from by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, The Big Uneasy around here), bandits, a Damon Lindelof, Mark Fergus and Bill Cunningham New York Blank City magic bracelet, an ancient Hawk Ostby, based on Platinum Studios' “Cowboys and Aliens” by Bride Flight Indian cure for amnesia, a Bridesmaids Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. Running symbolic hummingbird, a Buck brave kid with a spyglass, time: 118 minutes. Rated PG-13 Captain America: The First Avenger and a plucky dog who (for intense sequences of Western Cars 2 Buy now » follows the good guys for and sci-fi action and violence, some The Change-Up miles and miles through the partial nudity and a brief crude Conan O'Brien Can't Stop barren waste and must be reference). Cowboys & Aliens plumb tuckered out. Crazy, Stupid, Love Printer-friendly » The Devil's Double Everything Must Go This is not a satire. Nor is it E-mail this to a friend » a comedy. Humanity is in Film Socialisme danger, and it's up to the Forks Over Knives rough-hewn cowboys of the Friends with Benefits Old West to save us. Daniel The Future Buy now » Green Lantern Craig plays Lonergan, the The Guard stagecoach killer, Harrison Ford plays the not enigmatically named The Hangover Part II Woodrow Dolarhyde, and Keith Carradine is Sheriff Taggart, who has Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 his work cut out for him. Hesher Horrible Bosses The aliens, as usual, show limited signs of intelligence. Oh, they How to Live Forever arrive in a spaceship that's taller than a skyscraper, and they must In Memoriam have designed it. But mostly they strafe the town, drop explosive Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer charges behind characters but rarely upon them and reel up human Kung Fu Panda 2 Buy now » victims into their smaller flying ships in order (need we be told) to Larry Crowne study them. Their other purpose in journeying unimaginable The Last Mountain distances across the void is to use mysterious forces to suck up gold A Little Help — coins, watches, rings, whatever. Louder Than a Bomb A Love Affair of Sorts Make Believe I call these monsters bug-eyed not to be unkind but to trace their The Man Who Fell to Earth lineage back to the mother lode of BEMs on the covers of such pulp Meek's Cutoff mags as Thrilling Wonder Stories. It's almost too good to be true to Midnight in Paris learn, via a trade review, that this movie was inspired not by a comic Monte Carlo book but by its cover. That's the spirit! Mr. Popper's Penguins Buy now » The Names of Love The movie will no doubt be Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times popular and deserves Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides success. As preposterous Project Nim moneymakers go, it's Le Quattro Volte ambitious and well-made. Rejoice and Shout The acting from the large Rise of the Planet of the Apes cast is of a high standard, The Road to Nowhere Craig and Ford were more or The Robber Sarah's Key less born into their roles, and Buy now » Snow Flower and the Secret Fan director Jon Favreau actually The Soft Skin develops his characters and Strongman gives them things to do, Submarine instead of posing them in Super 8 front of special effects. Tabloid Terri Yet I feel a certain small 13 Assassins sadness. I wish this had Thor been a Western. You know, Transformers: Dark of the Moon Buy now » the old-fashioned kind, The Tree of Life without spaceships. Daniel The Trip Craig, cold-eyed and lean, Trollhunter Twelve Thirty plays a character familiar in (Enlarge Image) The Undefeated the genre; think of the Ringo Winnie the Pooh Kid or Doc Holliday, bad X-Men: First Class guys who rise to goodness. Zookeeper

Harrison Ford, as the rancher, embodies the kind of man who comes more current releases » Buy now» riding into town at the head of his private posse and issues orders to everyone. Sam Rockwell's Doc is the kind of small businessman who on dvd has come West while seeking his fortune among hard men. All the elements are here. new on dvd We are told, however, that the Western is a dead genre. The last one kids liked was "Rango," an animated cartoon. "True Grit," more new on dvd » "Appaloosa" and "3:10 to Yuma" were good, but limited in their demographic appeal. A competent director — Favreau, say — could coming on dvd have ditched the ridiculous aliens and made a straight Western with Buy now» the same cast, but today there's small chance of that. more coming on dvd » Yet I suspect the big audiences drawn to this concept will find themselves more deeply drawn into the conventional Western great movies on dvd material in the opening scenes, before the aliens attack. There is more genuine suspense when the rancher's loopy son (Paul Dano) starts shooting up the town than when countless aliens appear, more great movies on dvd » resembling a fusion of gorillas and lobsters.

Buy now» One alien element has become almost traditional. Ever since "Alien," we've had the phenomenon of aliens who unfold to reveal wicked inner parts. The aliens here have chest cavities that open to extrude three-fingered hands, slimy with mucus. One shudders to envision the use of these limbs during sex. On their home world, there must be fortunes to be made in opening manicure shops.

Note: Oh, blessed joy! The movie is in glorious 2-D.