‘Cowboys & Aliens’ and Chunky Bracelets

You see it occasionally on the fashion runway: A designer creates a punk look punctuated with preppy stripes or fashions a gown out of recycled denim. This creativity defies convention and is unexpected, admirable, memorable.

But does it work? Would you really wear it?

In Cowboys & Aliens, Daniel Craig is a cowboy who wakes in the middle of the desert in authentic period Western clothing, yet also sporting a space-age chunky bracelet he doesn’t remember putting on.

See?

A-plus for creativity. It defies convention. I won’t forget the film anytime soon. But I’m not sure I’ll buy it.

The film's title is darn good, and despite the visual distraction of combining dusty American history with metallic alien spacecraft, the acting is terrific. Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig and Olivia Wilde portray the lifestyle of the Old West with ample doses of liquor-in-the-wound reality. The tawny desert landscape is sweeping, as is the cinematic footage of men riding galloping horses.

I also like the interplay of father and son in this film, and since Cowboys & Aliens is Spielberg produced, for me, it evokes the tenderness of Elliot’s absentee father in E.T.

While I’m glad to see Hollywood bring back the Western, the futuristic alien spacecraft disturbs the look of American yesteryear. In order for a cross-genre film to resonate, the overall “look” can’t appear too bifurcated. That’s the problem with this film. The Western “look” and the Space Age “look” don’t complement each other.

Perhaps the design could have come together with gold, since the film touches on how the Old West and the Other World fight over it. Had the gold been utilized more in the storytelling—a figurative golden thread weaving alien and cowboy together—perhaps I might have left the theater in search of cowboy boots stitched with UFOs.

If you go, you might enjoy it. It certainly is interesting to look at as a new-age spacecraft lands on the rustic desert runway.

Until then, find E.T. and give him a Stetson.