Outlander |
  • USA / Germany / France • 2008 • 115m •    • Directed by: Howard McCain. • Starring: Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, John Hurt, Cliff Saunders, Patrick Stevenson, Aidan Devine, Ron Perlman, Bailey Maughan, John Nelles, James Preston Rogers, Scott Owen, Petra Prazak. • Music by: Geoff Zanelli.      In 709 AD, in the Iron Age, a spacecraft crashes in the Viking kingdom of Herot, Norway, and the pilot Kainan survives. He turns the beacon on; learns the language and culture of the planet using a machine; and finds that the predator, Moorwen, that he was transporting, had escaped. While chasing the alien monster, he finds a village completely destroyed and is arrested by the warrior Wulfric, believing that he killed the locals - Kainan is brought to Herot as a prisoner.
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Review:
This spaceman is from the future, and another planet, where supposedly things have evolved, you'd think that after all those years, he would have evolved. You'd say: just think of what he could bring to these people now, with what he knows. You'd think that. But "thinking" is not something these "film makers" have obviously ever done. They are amebas that just keep going foreword without thought, feeling or soul.
Oh, see... I forgot to mention... see this staggeringly unoriginal claptrap takes place in the days of the Vikings! So, you see... it's different. Alien monster is not a few years in the future... but he's gone back to the past. See, that makes it all different now! Except now you have this spaceman from the future from another planet, dealing with the "primitive" Spam loving folk of two thousand years ago. Gee, you'd think there would be something interesting here. Did anyone see "Starman"... a beautiful little movie that actually used that premise? No... it was just another way of combining all the Sword and Sorcery movies with the ton of "Alien" rip-offs. I mean, you'd think this spaceman's advance abilities would help these "primitive" mead drinking warriors? Actually no. Nothing. In fact, he seems to know just how to parry-thrust with a sword like any good warrior of the iron age. There's a quick second where there's some kind of mention that he can't ride a horse, but that's given up quickly, and he jumps on (even with his hands tied!) and rides like the wind.
In fact at one point, he's the one who devises the trap to try and get this monster, as if he's been out on the range his whole life barnstorming and digging wells. Shouldn't that be the other way around? Shouldn't they show him a thing or two of how to live off the land? Shouldn't both of the cultures either clash, or teach each other something? Nope. That would mean some kind of creative thought. No, this one has the benevolent old king with the braids in his hair (oh, and are you ready... played by "Alien" actor John Hurt), the dashing king-to-be, the king's daughter, who doesn't like the king-to-be, the battling leader of the other tribe, and... yes, the little orphan boy. And the boy learns to... no... that would again be too much. The boy doesn't learn a thing except how to cut his hair.
There's a great bit of Déjà vu in the scenes of the alien creature in his lair gathering bodies like squirrels to nuts (it gets cold in the winter up there in Norway, you have to be prepared)... along with guys not with guns and flashlights, but swords and torches running around dripping tunnels (why do they all have to drip... just because Ridley Scott did it once, does EVERYONE have turn around in drips!!!) and being eaten.
Yes, one does think again and again of "Monty Python's Holy Grail", except, in this case it's the audience who needs to be shouting: "Run away... run away!" I watched this with a crowd of Sci-Fi people, who really tried to like this movie for the first half... but even they began to hiss and boo, as one overused scene after another vomited its way onto the screen. At one point when you have the proverbial girl dangling off a cliff, being held by two fingers by the hero screams: "swing me!" it was over. The crowd burst into gales of laughter. Yes, they were laughing AT the movie. Then, started the mass exodus through the dark (they "film makers" put all their money on bad CGI effects, and didn't have enough for lights, so it was always dark in the theater), without the slightest interest in seeing what they knew was the obvious ending.
However the few that stayed, were rewarded in that they got to see one of the most unintentionally hilarious send offs of the end of "North By Northwest" ever filmed. But I'm telling you... this monster is no Eva Marie Saint.
I've purposely not mentioned the names of those responsible for this junk food called a movie. Check it out above you in the credits. And do whatever you can to keep them from doing this again. These are not individuals who should ever be given money and shout "action", or "cut", or "less light", or "we can't do that, it's never been done before!" No, there needs to be "stalker laws" for non talents like this. They need to have an injunction to keep them at least fifty feet away from any studio, sound stage, CGI shop, or DVD Player. The last so they can't continue to make movies solely by imitation.
Review by Yokam from the Internet Movie Database.
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