Outlander - Review

A few months ago i saw THIS TRAILER for a movie called Outlander. The movie follows a soldier from a colony from another planet who tracks down and captures a large alien monster. While transporting it through space his ship crash lands on Earth circa 709 AD only to be captured by Vikings. The Outlander, as he is called, informs them of the "dragon" that he has brought and that he is the only one who can stop it.

For a while i was obsessed. I really wanted to see this movie. I don't know why i wanted to see it so bad. I am not a big fan of vikings, but the space stuff looked cool and i like monster movies so i figured it would be most likely awesome. I began to do some research and it looked like it was going to be released in a limited theaters. Being from southern california it usually does not matter how limited of a release a film is, chances are that it will be showing fairly close to me. This seemed like an original enough premise with cool effects to make it worth my while to make the trek to wherever it was showing. The only problem, the closest place that was showing it was way up in San Jose for only one midnight showing. Weak.

Although i knew i wouldn't get to check it out in the theater, i figured that it would be something that i could pick up on home video. I found out that they were going to release a dvd of Outlander in the united states. This got me pretty excited. I figured that i would just go ahead an purchase the movie, on the principal that i feel like supporting a film that has the guts to try something off the beaten path. With all of the remakes out there, i would rather support something that has some sort of originality. When is hollywood going to realize that movies like Land of the Lost are going to continue to tank, while original ideas like Up and The Hangover thrive?

After i was unable to purchase a copy of Outlander on DVD with a gift card i had through FYE, i ended up finding out that outside of the united states there were Blu-ray versions of the film, that would play in my player. So i dropped about $25 and had a copy of Outlander shipped to me from Canada.

Today i was able to sit down and watch this movie. Although it does have some issues, i feel that with a little fine tuning, that this movie would have been able to make some money theatrically. If they can release films like Pathfinder and In the Name of the King, why couldn't this movie make it? Apparently the Weinsteins did not feel it was good enough for a wide audience. Thanks, jerks.

The movie is pretty good. The effects are pretty solid for the most part. There are a few moments were the monster looks like something out of Xena or Hercules, but i think the design is cool and it is shot in such a way that you do not take too much notice of the effects that aren't as successful. I think that the acting of Jim Caviezel and John Hurt was really good. I thought that Ron Pearlman was awesome and could have used a lot more screen time. The sets were beautiful and the cinematography was well done. It reminded me of a fantasy film from the 80's but with a lot less cheese. I would love to see more space stuff, but the majority of the film is Viking centric. It is a fun adventure with some cool effects and plenty of viking fighting!

All in all, it was a pretty solid film and will watch it again with whoever is up for a viewing.

★ ★ ★ ½