For about a year now, I’ve been seeing the trailer for Cowboys and Aliens before every single film I’ve gone to see.  And now, finally, the Jon Favreau’s latest film has been released.  I saw it on Friday afternoon with my friend Evelyn and our reaction to it can be summed up in one word:

Meh.

Seriously, this might not be the worst film of 2011 so far (not as long as Priest, The Conspirator, The Beaver, and Sanctum continue to exist in our reality) but it’s definitely one of the most meh films of all time.  Cowboys and Aliens epitomizes everything that we mean when we say “meh.”  It’s not exactly terrible but it’s not good either.  What it is, ultimately, is very forgettable. 

This is one of those films where everything just seems to be a little bit off-track.  It’s like a car that technically runs but the whole time you’re inside of it, you know that there’s a chance the engine’s going to explode and you’re going to be stranded in Oak Cliff* with a dying cell phone.  You’re just happy that it gets you to your destination so you can get out of the car, not because you actually enjoyed the trip.

If you want to get into specifics, I’d point out that:

1) Daniel Craig isn’t all that believable as a notorious gunslinger.

2) Harrison Ford looks annoyed to be there.

3) The cast is full of excellent character actors — like Sam Rockwell — who essentially get to do nothing.

4) The aliens basically look like leftovers from Skyline andBattle L.A. 

5) The action sequences are pretty boring (there’s not one moment that makes you gasp and go, “Wow!”) and are so badly edited that it’s difficult to keep track of who is shooting at who. 

6) For the first quarter of the film, we’re watching a bad western and then, suddenly, we’re watching a boring, uninspired science fiction action film. 

7) A major plot point essentially centers on Daniel Craig (with the aid of some helpful Indians, of course) going on a “spirit quest.”  Seriously, filmmakers today use spirit quests and sweat lodges in much the same way that filmmakers of the 60s used garish acid trips.  It’s all an excuse for a bunch of zoom lenses and bright color filters.

8 ) Finally, and this is most fatal of the film’s flaws, it just takes all of this so seriously.  There’s not even a scene of a brave gunslinger shouting, “Draw, you four-armed bastard!” at an alien.  Seriously, this should have been a fun film.  Instead, it’s just another overproduced, forgettable establishment film.

Jon Favreau is a likable enough actor (even if he does seem to be fated to spend his career competing for roles with Kevin James) and he’s made some likable films (Elf, Iron Man, Zathura)  but Cowboys and Aliens could have been made by just about anyone.  It’s a film that feels like it was put together on an assembly line.  Originally, me and Evelyn swore that, if Cowboys and Aliens sucked, we were going to react by running down to the front of the theater and entertaining everyone by doing the Timewarp.  However, by the time it became apparent just how meh this film was, neither one of us really felt like creating a little sexy civil disobedience.  Quite frankly, we just wanted it to end so we could move on to the next film.

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*Oak Cliff, for all you Yankees out there, is a neighborhood of Dallas.  I used to live there but I was only a few months old at the time and I still wouldn’t want to end up stranded out there.