The title doesn't lie: "Cowboys & Aliens" does, indeed, serve up an epic showdown between Old West gunslingers and science-fiction extraterrestrials.

What the title doesn't mention are the production robots — who must have been behind the camera, constructing this emotionless, button-pushing summer blockbuster.

The movie starts with James Bond himself, Daniel Craig, waking up in the desert with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He's also wearing a metal bracelet on his left wrist, one he cannot remove. He discovers a wound on his abdomen and a talent for fighting and shooting — which he uses on the unsavory men who find him first, which is how he acquires a horse, a revolver and his clothes.

He rides into the nearest town, where a worldwise preacher (Clancy Brown) stitches him up and a meek bartender named Doc (Sam Rockwell) pours him a whiskey. Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) recognizes him as Jake Lonergan, a wanted outlaw. Taggart is also holding Percy Dollarhyde (Paul Dano), the bratty son of the town's richest rancher, Col. Woodrow Dollarhyde (Harrison Ford) — who rides into town one night with his men, demanding that the sheriff release Percy and hand Lonergan (who apparently stole gold from Dollarhyde) over to him.

Then, in the movie's signature scene, the aliens attack the town, in huge metal airships that pluck up townspeople — including Percy, Taggart and Doc's wife, Maria (Ana de la Reguera) — and fly them away. That's when Jake's mystery bracelet comes to life, and he shoots down one of the metal machines. Dollarhyde forms a posse to follow the alien pilot's trail, with Jake, Doc, the preacher, Dollarhyde's Indian ranchhand Nat (Adam Beach), Taggart's young grandson (Noah Ringer from "The Last Airbender") and the oddly composed Ella (Olivia Wilde).

Director Jon Favreau (who made both "Iron Man" movies) neatly melds the B-movie iconography of both the Western and science-fiction genres, with six-guns and laser blasters, horses and spaceships, sweaty cowpokes and slimy space creatures. He also has fun pairing Hollywood's current iconic action star, Craig, with his predecessor, Ford, and watching the sparks fly as their respective gruffness rubs against each other.

What's missing in the much-handled script — an adaptation of Scott Mitchell Rosenberg's comic book, with six credited writers and an unknown number of script doctors — is any deep understanding of either genre. The cowboy characters are never fleshed out beyond their Old West stereotypes, and the extraterrestrials are the same kind of goopy, tentacled and boringly rapacious computer-generated beastie we've seen in everything from "Independence Day" to "Cloverfield."

"Cowboys & Aliens" turns out to be another assembly-line Hollywood blockbuster, a Western for people who have never seen Westerns, and a science-fiction movie for people who don't like science fiction.

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Cowboys & Aliens

Space invaders hit the Old West in an action blockbuster that delivers the goods in robotic fashion.

Where • Theaters everywhere

When • Opens today

Rating • PG-13 for intense sequences of Western and sci-fi action and violence, some partial nudity and a brief crude reference

Running time • 118 minutes