3:10 to Yuma

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A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

And a movie critic’s gotta do what a movie critic’s gotta do.

Which, in this case, means it’s my solemn duty to report that “3:10 to Yuma” is, alas, not the second coming of the Western — no matter how mightily it tries.

If “Unforgiven” couldn’t do it, if “Open Range” and “Silverado” and “Tombstone” couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t bet the ranch that this absorbing remake of a 50-year-old favorite will breathe life into the hallowed Hollywood Western, the bones of which lie bleaching and all but forgotten on the silver-screen prairie.

Yet perhaps this newfangled “3:10 to Yuma” will remind folks of the old-fashioned cinematic pleasures to be had watching two men — one good, one bad, yet both with far more in common than either imagined — facing off in a life-or-death test of their true mettle.

And, with the likes of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale playing those men, this “3:10 to Yuma” boasts acting firepower that surpasses the original, which starred smiling smoothie Glenn Ford (as the bad guy) and rugged Everyman Van Heflin (as the good).

When it comes to actual firepower, director James Mangold (“Walk the Line”) lets the bullets — and the mayhem — fly, perhaps trying to demonstrate that these wide open spaces (of New Mexico, standing in for Arizona) aren’t all that different than the mean streets of contemporary America we think we know so well.

Some of “3:10 to Yuma’s” other elements boast a modern feel as well — from a frank approach to frontier sex to the multicultural West the characters call home, populated by everyone from renegade Apaches to Chinese coolies working on the railroad.

There’s also a more contemporary attempt to create complex motivation, as screenwriters Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (taking a giant step forward from “2 Fast 2 Furious” and “Catch That Kid”) beef up TV veteran Halsted Welles’ taut-wire 1957 adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s original story by adding new characters and confrontations.

In so doing, however, this new “3:10 to Yuma” doesn’t travel as light as its lean and streamlined predecessor, which built irresistible countdown-to-the-showdown suspense as the title train’s arrival loomed ever closer.

But the movie’s fundamental showdown — between wily outlaw Ben Wade and hardscrabble rancher Dan Evans — remains unchanged, and just as highly charged.

It’s post-Civil War Arizona, where the desperate Evans (Bale) scrambles to keep his dying ranch alive.

Numerous obstacles loom, from a seemingly endless drought to a rich neighbor trying to force the family off their land. Even Evans’ wife (Gretchen Mol) and his surly teenage son (a fervent Logan Lerman) doubt his ability to make a go of it — in part because Evans left part of one leg on a Civil War battlefield.

But the rancher can still fire a rifle like the Union sharpshooter he once was. And for $200, he’ll ride with the other members of a jittery posse — including a grizzled bounty hunter (flinty powerhouse Peter Fonda) and an arrogant railroad officer (a snippy Dallas Roberts, the 19th-century equivalent of yuppie scum) — planning to escort the notorious Wade (Crowe) to a train bound for the equally notorious Arizona territorial prison in Yuma.

Assuming, of course, the posse survives the inevitable shootout Wade’s outlaw gang — led by baby-faced psycho killer Charlie Prince (a hammy, self-conscious Ben Foster) — is plotting to unleash.

When that fast-and-furious climax finally rolls around, “3:10 to Yuma” shifts into high gear — a gear that’s undeniably rousing yet strangely anachronistic. It’s almost as if Mangold and Co. were trying to graft a big-bang, 21st-century shoot-’em-up sequence onto a movie where people rely on horse power rather than horsepower and fire six-shooters instead of semiautomatics.

Besides, the impact of all that ammunition seems downright puny in light of the power generated by “3:10 to Yuma’s” dynamic central duo.

The characters of Evans and Wade were more evenly matched in the 1957 original. But perhaps it’s a sign of the times that the 50-years-later version’s good guy seems less compelling than the villainous varmint, even with the ever-intense Bale seething as a hapless toiler who’s let everyone down, including himself, but is dead set against allowing it to happen again.

And while it’s fun to imagine the roles reversed, with Bale exercising his scarily relentless charm as Ben Wade, it’s doubtful he’d be any more commanding than the equally chameleonic Crowe, who dominates this “3:10 to Yuma” with sly but undeniable authority.

A Bible-quoting gent with a taste for the high life, Crowe’s Wade disguises his killer instincts with a smirk, a wink and a courtly, insouciant veneer. Yet the cold, deadly killer’s always there — sizing up the situation, weighing the odds, calculating the price he must pay to get away with robbery. (Or, if forced to, murder.)

That is, until Wade meets a man like Evans — someone who can’t, or won’t, turn tail and run.

Then as now, men like Dan Evans are the exception rather than the rule in a world full of Ben Wades.

But, as “3:10 to Yuma” reminds us, it’s always intriguing to saddle up, load up and face the ultimate decision: Which trail will you ride?

Assuming, of course, you have a choice. And in a Western, you always do.