Silly and sweaty

There is panic in the extraterrestrial markets. The Ursa Minor indexes are tanking, and slime-based lifeforms throughout the galaxy are dumping the Outer Space equivalent of Italian bonds and piling into something a bit safer — gold. But gold is running out, so aliens looking to diversify their portfolios with the universe’s most valuable metal are left with only one option: steal it from some backwater of a planet like, well, Earth.

OK, I’m speculating here. But imagine this scenario playing out 150 years ago, and you pretty much have the backstory of Cowboys & Aliens — in which an intergalactic mining vessel thuds down somewhere in the New Mexico Territory with the intention of gittin’ it some bullion. Not that the locals, including a dazed and bloodied Daniel Craig, have a clue what is going on. One minute they’re spitting tobacco and brawling in the street; the next they’re fending off alien fighter craft using pistols and spears. And fend off they must, because alien goldminers make for ungracious planet guests, what with their infuriating habit of greeting new earthlings by abducting them and then dissecting their zombified bodies using surgical laser sticks.

Luckily for humankind, it turns out that Craig — who has a terrible headache and can’t remember a thing — is actually an escapee from the aliens’ prison-cum-laboratory, and has managed to procure a glowing bracelet that doubles as a supergun. Thus we are launched into a film that never risks confusing its audience by straying too far from the crushingly literal title. In short: warring humans of the Wild West must come together as one species to boot these no-good darn space monsters wit’ dem fancy rocketships back to the dimension from whence they came.