OK, here’s the deal. When you’re talking about a movie called “Cowboys and Aliens,” you’ll do well not to overthink it.

I’m glad I hadn’t read some of the reviews I’ve read today, before I went to see the film last night. Because I had a great time. I don’t think I’ve sat in a theater seat and enjoyed myself so much since I saw “Taken.” When you’re talking summer movies, it doesn’t get much better than this, if you’re asking me.

The secret to carrying off a ridiculous genre mash-up like this, unless your intention is to do farce, is to take it as seriously as “High Noon.” No ironic, I’m-above-the-material lines from the actors. No winks at the audience. No blatant contemporary references, either pop or political.

In this the makers of “Cowboys and Aliens” succeeded splendidly. There are funny moments, but the actors don’t know they’re funny. All they know is that they’re being attacked by nearly invulnerable monsters, that their loved ones are missing, and that time is running out.

The film opens with the hero, Jake Lonergan (underplayed in Eastwoodesque style by Daniel Craig), waking up in the desert. He can’t remember who he is, he has a painful wound just under the ribs, and a strange metal shackle is wrapped around his wrist.

Making his way to the town of Absolution, he interferes with a local bully, the son of a cattle baron named Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford). Jake is approached by a mysterious woman, Ella Swenson (played by Olivia Wilde, looking simultaneously lovely and silly in a light cotton dress with a big holstered six gun at her waist), who wants information from Jake, but won’t tell him what she knows about him. The town marshal recognizes Jake as a wanted outlaw, and arrests him. But soon everyone has bigger problems, because unearthly, dragonfly-like flying machines start bombing the town, snatching up citizens, and zooming away with them. In the course of the fight it becomes obvious that Jake’s “arm gun” is the only effective weapon against the aliens, and so begins a trek of uneasy allies—Dolarhyde’s cowboys, a few townsmen, Jake’s old outlaw bunch, and (eventually) a tribe of Apaches, to try to get their people back.

And it works. At least it worked for me. Some other viewers don’t seem to see it that way, but I ate up every minute. It isn’t often a film is worth what they want from you to get into a theater anymore, but I say go for this one.

I can list quibbles. The costumes are generally very good, but costume designers need to understand that, while they’re right to abandon the traditional cinematic “three in a pickup cab” cowboy hat, the correct alternative is not derbies and short top-hats, but Stetsons with different configurations. (The gun leather, however, is excellent). And judging by the age of a character identified as being a child during the Mexican War, this film can’t be set much later than 1870, which is before dynamite (used heavily here) was invented. As well as a number of the firearms in use.

Harrison Ford is good as a grizzled old rancher, and I appreciated his character arc as he learns important lessons in compassion and humanity, but it was perhaps too much of an arc. When we first see him, he’s more than a grouch and a misanthrope. He’s a psycho. The reformation of this character, even through fires of trial, seems a little far-fetched.

One of the most interesting characters is the local parson, who doubles as town doctor (although the saloon keeper is known as “Doc”). It’s refreshing to see a Christian minister portrayed as positively as this one is (though he enjoys his whisky), but I don’t know where he went to seminary, because he knows no Christian theology at all.

One plot element—I won’t spoil it—might be seen as support for suicide bombing. I don’t know if that’s intentional or not.

But the bottom line—I want emphasize this is—don’t overthink it. Have a good time with this movie, because it’s exquisitely engineered for a good time. The action is stirring, the photography great, the music classic Western theme.

Relax. Enjoy it. You have my permission.

Not for young children, due to violence, language, and brief nudity that’s no worse than anything you’d see on a TV commercial.