You can be 100 percent sure that "Cowboys & Aliens" was a title long before it ever became a story; this is one of those high-concept ideas that practically writes itself. No doubt someone felt very clever at figuring out how to solve the now politically incorrect "cowboys and Indians" match-up with the stroke of a pen.
Director Jon Favreau, who once upon a time penned the very amusing script for "Swingers," gives you almost exactly what you'd expect from the title; nothing more, nothing less. Rather stupefying is the fact that despite being based on a 100-page comic book (that wasn't exactly James Joyce or anything), it took eight writers to achieve a script that feels like it was created by an algorithm.
Set in the Wild West of 1873, "Cowboys & Aliens" features your usual bunch of cowboys from pretty much any horse opera from the past 80 years. You can name them in your sleep: the tough and taciturn stranger, the wild young gun, "Doc," the sheriff, the preacher, the hooker with a heart of gold, the evil old rancher, the stoic Indian scout. Indeed, many of the actors in these roles — Adam Beach, Buck Taylor, Keith Carradine — are familiar from plenty of other scenes set in saloons and corrals, while Daniel Craig seems to have been cast for his resemblance to blue-eyed Steve McQueen, star of "The Magnificent Seven."