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| Outlander |
Director: Howard McCain
Writers: Dirk Blackman, Howard McCain
Stars: Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles and Ron Perlman
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.
The Good: As Gomer Pyle famously said: Sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-priiise... Outlander's actually good. Is it great? Probably not. But I think anyone keeping an eye on this whacked-out film mash-up was only really hoping for good - and good is what we get here. Vikings and space aliens shouldn't meet - for battle, for drinks, for pretty much any affair. Here they do. The result could have been high comedy, instead we get a big beautiful bonanza of 80's cinematic idealism compounded with modern technology.
By 80's cinematic idealism I mean those movies that the cocaine era spawned pretty much routinely. Movies like Krull. Beastmaster. Dragonslayer. Richard Donner's awesome Ladyhawke and Ridley Scott's Legend. It's like some post-modern Indiana Jones went on an archaeological dig in the cellars of Tinseltown and found an old dusty script from that era called Outlander, took it out of retirement and actually followed through with making the picture a reality. These movies rarely happen anymore. The last few have been Reign of Fire :-) Pathfinder :-( and maybe Neil Marshall's Doomsday :-| (I just used Emoticons! up until now I thought these were Transformers that listened to Fallout Boy...)
So does Outlander prove that there's still some private corners of the movie studio world stuffing piles of cocaine down their nasal cavities? I hope so. We need more whacked-out films like this. And better yet we need them to work - maybe not miracles - but actually work. Outlander works. Kind of like a Japanese robot dog works. It can't chase a stick and retrieve it, but it won't be sh*tting on the rug either.
Jim Caviezel sort of lends this flick his Jesus-cred and manages to keep the movie somewhere in the realm of respectable. His "outlander" character has a pretty decent back-story and some seriously sweet space-toys when the film starts. It was a bit of a wash-out that as the flick continued we don't really feel like his character is from an advanced society in any way. He just sort of shrugs off technology and science and picks up a sword with the rest of the heathen hordes to fight the dragon medieval style. It would have been a better move to at least toss some science fiction into this fantasy movie other than back-story and a few fleeting scenes near the opening of the film. Though I'll admit it right here, right now - the swords they do end up designing out of the hull of his crashed space ship, gawdamn I want one of those. Swords are characters in this film strain. William Wallace had a big cool sword. Aragorn had one. Conan had one. This is the first selection of film swords I would actually fork over a weighty wad of cash to own. I still just might.
On the monster front, Outlander actually has a pretty cool beast these boys of the horny-helmet must contend with. The Moorwen has a great design to it. Part dragon, part pitbull, part angler fish. It makes for a formidable foe, but...
The Bad: If only the money men would have sunk just a few more bucks into the special effects in this movie. It's not Wolverine 2009 bad, but it's not Reign of Fire good either. The Moorwen looks great, but moves like he's the product of a Playstation game cut-scene. I can't help but think what a few more dollars would have delivered here.
And speaking of short-changing... Can we get a few decent-looking wigs and fake beards for a major motion picture anytime soon? We do have space stations now. This is the modern era. Some of these guys, (Ron Perlman/John Hurt) look like their heads are going through pubic hair relocation treatment. The 70's porn industry didn't pack this much muff. Want to make a 100 million dollar movie look like a 2 million dollar B-movie? Use bad wigs. It's that simple.
The Ugly: Hmmmmmm..... I don't think there's really anything too seriously wrong here. Outlander didn't go all Pathfinder on my ass so maybe I'll just move on.
The Verdict: The Detroit News is fabulously misquoted on the box art for this DVD. The quote says: "Honestly. Best. Movie. Ever." What they fail to add on the DVD packaging is the rest of the critic's broken sentences which read: "Well, not really". Which is fine. It's a ballsy way to review the thing, and an even ballsier move selectively quoting from it. If I had to get Detroit Newsy about Outlander I'd say: "Better. Than. It. Has. Any. Bloody. Right. To. Be." and leave it at that.
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1 comments:
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