Review of Outlander (2008) by Xgary X — 25 Oct 2010

An alien spaceship crash lands in 8th century Norway where the surviving passenger Jim Caviezel must join forces with the local inhabitants to destroy a vicious monster he unwittingly brought with him.

Alien 3 gets medieval on our asses in this deeply silly variation on Beowulf. The idea of Vikings vs aliens seems pretty irresistable (hey, I liked Reign Of Fire...) and these kind of daft sci-fi B movies can be great fun if done with self awareness and a sense of humour.

Unfortunately Outlander has neither. Caviezel's so-called character is sketched purely in the form of clumsy flashbacks to the ubiquitous murdered family, and in the land of the Vikings he finds a fiery princess to impress, an orphaned boy to adopt and a local warrior to butt heads and bond with while they hunt down the inevitably computer generated beast.

The fact that he is from outer space is pretty much ignored and virtually irrelevant to the cliche riddled plot and the feeble attempt at providing depth and moralisation goes nowhere. Quite why Caviezel, Perlman and especially John Hurt got involved with this straight to DVD standard tosh is a mystery; if I ever meet him I will be torn between shaking his hand for a lifetime of cinematic achievement and demanding two hours of my life back for duping me into sitting through this steaming pile of Norse manure.