Cowboy and alien encounters of the third kind

What on earth (other planets, too) is a Jon Favreau movie?

I’ve seen them all, yet I don’t quite know. There’s so much going on in his two “Iron Man’’ installments that, as hard as he clearly worked to pull them off, you feel his touch only in the banter and parrying among the actors, of which he’s one. This isn’t so much a matter of not really understanding the intricacies of applying fractal landscapes and fluid dynamics to Robert Downey Jr. - although who am I kidding: I don’t. It’s a matter of knowing that my favorite thing about Favreau’s acting is the self-deprecation of his comedy.

The first movie he directed was “Made’’ (2001), an odd-couple caper in which he frequently rolled his eyes at Vince Vaughn, as he also had in “Swingers’’ (1996). Before Matt and Ben there were these two, and like them they don’t work together enough. Vaughn’s obnoxiousness brings out soft exasperation in Favreau, a big, thickly built guy who’s managed to empty himself of the machoness that his costar likes to tinker with. Vaughn loves himself more than he does anyone else. Favreau loves everyone more than he does himself. The relationship’s power dynamic bugs him, but he can’t let go.

When that clash of egos comes through in the “Iron Man’’ movies and in the bearable patches of “Elf,’’ you’re in good hands. Favreau knows how to make self-esteem funny. A larger scale tends to push that skill into the background and the movies become generic entertainments. This is to say that action might not be his strong suit. So when reports suggested that Favreau seemed hurt that, based on the trailers, we all thought “Cowboys & Aliens’’ was a comedy, I started to worry.

Can the western withstand this?