| Overall Grade: |
B- |
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| Story: |
B- |
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| Acting: |
B- |
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| Direction: |
B- |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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Ah... Alien vs Vikings! How fun!
by bck (movies profile)
Jan 22, 2009
12
of
12 people found this review helpful
Some time back, there was this nice little idea for a film floating around. Red Indians vs. Vikings. Since it wasn’t a sports movie, it seemed like a good idea for an action flick, except that Pathfinder fell a little short of expectations. Of course, In The Name Of The King – A Dungeon Siege Tale didn’t do much for the medieval swords and sorcery genre either in spite of its starry cast. It could be why hopes for Outlander aren’t all that high when I stepped into the darkened hall.
I suppose I could give a “Spoiler Warning” but you get the idea of the plot from the first ten minutes of the movie anyway. And if you don’t know about that, well, this movie isn’t on your radar by now, so skip to the next paragraph for my thoughts. Once the title of the movie is out of the way, we see a spaceship crashing on to Earth and shades of Predator start running through the head. Except that what comes out of the spaceship is alien speaking Kainan (Jim Caviezel) and not some alien monster hunter looking for easy prey. We’re also told that the year is 709AD in Norway, so guess who’s in the neighbourhood? One quick lesson in the local Norse dialect (that sounds suspiciously like English) and Kainan is on the hunt, but is almost as quickly taken prisoner by Wulfric (Jack Huston). Kainan then tells the leader of this bunch of Vikings, Rothgar (a very spry and nimble John Hurt) that he’s hunting a dragon, but he calls it a Moorwen. So what we get is an Alien vs. Vikings set-up instead that has shades of Beowulf.
Coming from (and promoted as from) the producer of Lord Of The Rings, Barrie Osbourne, Outlander has some caliber to live up to. Taken as it is, however, Outlander is a rollicking semi sci-fi adventure more in the style of The 13th Warrior where big men with big swords go hunting for some unimaginable foe. It’s also good when the character don’t act as dumb as they could be in these kinds of movies. The stakes are high and the danger is real, and when confronted by the danger, they know what needs to be done with no personal issues to muddle things up, just trying to out think and out wit the creature.
Speaking of which, the creature effects are actually quite remarkable and beyond the norm. There’s an element to its design that makes it stand out from anything else that’s been on screen before (at least to my knowledge of sci-fi films), although it’s movements and physiology is nothing very alien. There’s a slight comfort in the familiarity but it also works a little against it. But that’s nit-picking.
With the exception of Caviezel sticking out like a sore thumb (but he’s meant to) the rest of the cast is fairly capable with no real stand-outs. The story doesn’t really require much from them, except from John Hurt who seems remarkably agile for his age, or he’s a lot younger than he seems. He even gets to wield a sword and have a good go at it while delivering the usual gravitas we would expect of him these days (V For Vendetta, The Oxford Murders). Ron Perlman also shows up as a rival clan chief while the lovely Sophia Myles (Doctor Who’s Girl in The Fireplace, Moonlight) does more than just stand around looking pretty.
In all, the direction is straightforward to provide with a decent piece of entertainment that is above the usual fare that comes our way (two examples mentioned earlier). It’s not quite Lord of The Rings, but it will satisfy the action fans and those who love the lush adventure with swords type of movie. I’d say it’s a nice start to the year. |
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