Outlander (2008) Howard McCain

Production Budget: $50 million

Gross: $161,000

Outlander is about a spaceship that crashes in Iron Age Norway. The only survivor Kainen (James Caviezel) is on a mission to kill a creature called a Moorwen that stowed away on his vessel. The Moorwen terrorizes a Nordic village led by Hrothgar (John Hurt) and Kainen teams up with the Vikings in order to kill the animal.

There’s a few ways this movie could turn out. I kind of thought it would be a touch campy because of the rather ludicrous set up of a spaceman in viking times. Kind of sounded like Cowboys vs. Aliens to me. Of course the box cover boasts “Predator meets Beowulf” which is…interesting. The movie I tend to think of after watching it is a poor man’s Ghost and the Darkness. You can tell that the writers did not want to make something so banal as having Vikings fight a natural foe like a bear or something. So instead we go for this odd alien horror movie angle which really isn’t played up to its full potential.

There really aren’t any futuristic weapons or sci fi tech (aside from one brief scene) in this science fiction movie. Even our hero Kainen doesn’t do anything to indicate he is an alien from a more advanced civilization. You would think someone who is cut off from his technology could improvise something or use some scientific advancement from his race but no. He is perfectly happy to pick up an ax and slum it with his viking companions. It is almost like the filmmakers are embarrassed about their one selling point and tried to back peddle the goofiness after the initial pitch.

Everything about this movie though ends up being generic and lackluster. None of the characters are interesting in any way. I actually really like James Caviezel but he is a block of wood in this movie. His character doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to give away the fact he is an alien. But guess what? When you don’t have you’re main character say anything then it is really hard to give a shit about him. John Hurt mutters through his lines enough to get by and Ron Perlman is almost less than a cameo. I didn’t care about any of these people.

The plot does play somewhat to Beowulf in that you have this hero from a distant land come to slay a monster. Really there is enough to string together plot points in a coherent manner and no more. There are no twists or surprises or thrills. This leads me to the last bit of blandness which is the monster. This is a pretty lame monster and the threat is minimized by the fact we are never told anything about it. You would think Kainen could talk about this creature and what it could do but he stays mum about it. In fact, he looks even more clueless about it after the first few attacks on it. The creature’s powers seem to come from plot convenience. Kainen mentions nothing about a natural armor…until he tries stabbing it with a sword and fails. Fire kills it…until it for some reason doesn’t. You can see it most times…until it decides to cloak like the predator. You see what I mean? You keep changing the rules on me and eventually tune out.

None of the action scenes are interesting or all that inspired. I know I keep running into a theme here but the movie keeps running into a steaming pile of mediocrity. Nothing about this movie is particularly awful. I can’t blame this on any one thing. But Outlander feels like if you took a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a really good monster movie. It is an extremely faded image of what a great movie should be. There is no reason for anyone to waste their time with this. Skip it.