He goes to a nearby mining town where he helps send to jail a young bully, Percy (Paul Dano), who’s terrorizing the people. It’s revealed that he’s actually a wanted criminal named Jake Lonergan. He tries to fight off the sheriff who wants to arrest him but a woman, Ella (Olivia Wilde), hits him on the head and he ends up in jail with Percy. Ella seems to know Jake from way back and wants him to help him regain his memory.
Just as he and Percy are about to be transported by the town’s sheriff (Keith Carradine), Percy’s dad, the shady Col. Woodrow Dollarhyde (Harrison Ford), comes along with his henchmen to get his son back. While they’re arguing, the aliens’ aircraft zoom along and start abducting people. Some Indians join the fray and a potion they give to Jake helps him remember that he was also abducted by the aliens along with his ill-fated wife (Abigail Spencer) and the gold coins he stole from some bandits. They then all troop to the alien base in the desert hills for a slambang battle scene.
This diverting spectacle is produced by veterans Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer and the five credited writers are the ones who also penned “Transformers” and “Star Trek” prequel. Director Jon Favreau (“Ironman”) shows respect for the root genres and mixes their elements quite well in this summer popcorn flick, even spicing it up with some humor. The new James Bond is cast with Indiana Jones, who looks so old and grizzled here you have to think hard to remind yourself that he was also once the dashing Han Solo. He actually starts as a corrupt villain and turns into one of the heroes when the aliens appear.
As the cowboy, Daniel Craig goes through the movie with a dead serious mien, never smiling, just like the way he portrays 007 since “Quantum of Solace”. And the movie does end with him walking into the sunset, just like in old westerns. The CGI special effects are topnotched and the extraterrestrials really look scary, with the action-filled climax conceived like a video game. The film is shot amidst beautiful desert landscape, making it so engaging to look at.
