It’s a story about good guys, bad guys and Native Americans joining forces in the New Mexico territories, in about 1875, to fight violent* aliens.

    Casting Daniel Craig as Alien Nemesis* No. 1 was a great idea, as was hiring director of photography Matthew Libatique to give the cinematography* a classic western* look.

    But little else about this film has worked out as planned. Both the cowboy and the alien halves of the story play like tired retreads* of once-fresh material, and putting them together doesn’t make it work.

    Craig’s character is introduced as a Man With No Name all alone in the middle of the desert with a strange-looking, high-tech bracelet* on his left wrist* and a mind empty of all knowledge of who he might be or where he might have come from.

    No Name, with very effective fighting skills, makes his way to the nearest town, where he runs into a bunch of people: the weak-kneed saloon owner (Sam Rockwell), the sniveling* son of a feared cattle baron (Paul Dano), the worried sheriff (Keith Carradine) and more.

    Once the aliens of the title show themselves, mimicking the aliens of “Super 8” by pulling good citizens off the streets of Absolution with the tentacles* of their dragonfly-shaped vehicles, the film goes off the rails in a different way.

    The final fight is repetitive* and tiresome, partially because it’s never clear what it takes to destroy the aliens.

    The only sure weapon the cowboys have turns out to be No Name’s bracelet, which also came from outer space, though it’s never clear why he seems to have the only one of these all-powerful wrist gizmos*. Don’t these aliens know enough not to travel without a spare?

    (SD-Agencies)