Outlander (2008)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Howard McCain

Writers (WGA):

Dirk Blackman (written by) &
Howard McCain (written by)

Release Date:

11 July 2008 (Latvia)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

It destroyed his world. He won't let it destroy ours.

Plot:

During the reign of the Vikings, Kainan, a man from a far-off world, crash lands on Earth, bringing with him an alien predator known as the Moorwen. Though both man and monster are seeking revenge for violence committed against them, Kainan leads the alliance to kill the Moorwen by fusing his advanced technology with the Viking's Iron Age weaponry.

Plot Keywords:

Viking | Alien | Old Norse | Beowulf | Norse

Cast

James Caviezel	...	Kainan
Sophia Myles	...	Freya
Jack Huston	...	Wulfric
John Hurt	...	Rothgar
Cliff Saunders	...	Boromir
Patrick Stevenson	...	Unferth
Aidan Devine	...	Einar
Ron Perlman	...	Gunnar
Bailey Maughan	...	Erick
John Nelles	...	Donal (as John E. Nelles)
James Preston Rogers	...	Bjorn (as James Rogers)
Scott Owen	...	Aethril
Petra Prazak	...	Mara
Owen Pattison	...	Galen, son of Kainen
Matt Cooke	...	Captain

MPAA:

Rated R for violence.

Runtime:

115 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English | Norse, Old

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R | UK:15 | Singapore:M18 | Singapore:NC-16 (edited version) | Ireland:15A | Hong Kong:IIB | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Bay of Islands, Newfoundland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

Company:

Weinstein Company, The

Trivia:

Renny Harlin was originally slated to direct when Howard McCain was pitching the script to film studios some years back.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Freya comes face to face with the creature in the cave, saliva from the creature's mouth drops on her cheek. On the next shot we see her face is clear. Then on the next shot the creature's saliva is on her face again.

Quotes:

Wulfric: This is where your ship went down?
Kainan: That's right.
Wulfric: In a lake?
Kainan: Don't ask.

The Space Marine, the Vikings, and the Alien Space Dragon

I stumbled upon this move by accident, but being a sci-fi and fantasy nerd, I watched it, despite the fact that sci-fi movies nowadays tend to be rather poor.

The story begins with Kainan (James Caviezel) crash landing his spaceship into a lake, in the middle of Viking-land, in 709 AD. With his co-pilot dead, and his ship in ruins, sunken to the bottom of the lake, he uses his only working piece of technology to teach himself the norsk language. (I laughed my head off, when the first word he utters in Earth language is the "F" word :D) Wandering around in a forest, he is found by Wulfric (Jack Huston) and brought back to his village. They think Kainen is responsible for brutally ransacking a nearby village, and when Kainen tells them he is hunting for a "dragon", he is labeled as a liar and enemy. When in fact, the "dragon" he is referring to, is a monster from another planet, now hunting the viking populace and fauna of the land. Soon, when the villagers start vanishing and turning up as mutilated corpses, the vikings realize that Kainen might be telling the truth after all...

I gotta say, combining space marines and alien monsters with a fantasy Viking setting intrigued me to no end. Outlander is the living proof, that such a combination can result in a very good and entertaining 115 minutes. Although the story is a little shallow, lacking in huge plot-twists and deep character development, but it is enough to keep the attention between the awesomely gory fight scenes.

The acting is good enough, with the Christian Bale look-alike Caviezel, and the great but short performance of Ron Perlman, it manages to be captivating. We see far more swordplay than pulse rifle shoot-outs, so the sci-fi part of the film is largely suppressed to make way for the epic battle between the vikings and the moorvens, but that's just how it must be in this movie. The fight scenes are nicely choreographed and acted, the special effects are more than awesome, and the whole is movie is just great.

I'd like to point out, that the Moorven is most astonishing space monster I've ever seen. With the clever colored pulsing and the well thought-out anatomy of the beast, it manages to be best so far.

It's not the best movie I've seen, but it's still great, and every sci-fi and fantasy fan should go see it.