The Passion of the Alien Dinosaur - 'Outlander' Review...
Okay, sorry. That will be my only Passion of the Christ joke. Seriously though, I really didn't know much of anything about Outlander when I went into the movie other than that it starred James Caviezel and that he comes from outer space. That's not exactly a promising premise, but once the movie gets rolling it's actually not that bad. Not bad for what it is, anyway. You have to understand that this is a shaky combination of Braveheart and Aliens and a little bit of Jurassic Park, but being what it is, it's about as good as you can expect.Caviezel stars as Kainan, a man from another world who crash-lands on earth in the time of the vikings. He is taken prison and denied any form of trust until he displays a tendency to save the king's life anytime there's a fight, until ultimately he convinces them that all that nonsense he was spouting about a dragon coming to get him was really true. There is a pretty cool flashback sequence about two thirds of the way through the movie where he explains something about his past, which sounds a little similar to America's own past.
He and his people landed on a planet and decided they liked it, so they killed all of its inhabitants and took it over as their own. Unfortunately, the inhabitants happened to have been huge dinosaur-like creatures, which turn out not to be the kind of thing that you want to piss off if you're not sure you can kill them all. Now, he's stuck on this planet with these people with primitive weapons, faced with the daunting task of killing these things off and without even knowing how many they have to deal with.
And the creatures are not trifles, either. This is an effects film, to be sure, which is not what I usually think about when I imagine a period film centered on the lives of vikings, but like I said, this movie is a strange combination of some very different genres. And as such, the effects are not bad. They're not great either, but better than I would expect in a movie like this.For its part, the story is actually pretty good. Kainan and his people tried to kill off this entire planet full of creatures, but some of them survived and atttacked back, killing off most of his people. So when he arrives on Earth both he and the creatures are seeking vengeance. I love the irony!
Even more ironic, however, is the fact that Kainan comes from the distant future or a distant world or both and is thrown into the mix with some people as primitive and barbaric as Nordic vikings. If this sounds like the epitome of awesomeness to you, you shouldn't bother reading this, just go watch the movie.
[caption id="attachment_23829" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Fireproof dinosaurs and vikiings! You can't go wrong!! Oh, and did I mention space travel?!"]
[/caption]If, however, you are like the rest of us and this set-up lights up your mind like a Christmas tree with worries and red-flags, you may want to be a little more cautious. At nearly two hours, it's not exactly your 85-minute sci-fi thrill ride that you don't exactly have to think about. There is real character development and an attempt at romance (I'm still a little unsure how I feel about that part), but I think as long as you keep in mind that this is the kind of thing that a life-long Dungeons & Dragons fan would do backflips over, then you are in a frame of mind to make an educated guess about how you'll feel about the movie.
I'll never watch it again, but I expected a lot worse. The characters in the movie have names like Gunnar and Rothgar and Wulfric, and with names like that, any movie is going to have a bit of a glass ceiling. But for it's part, Outlander is pretty much up against that ceiling.
The Bean Meter
[caption id="attachment_23830" align="aligncenter" width="222" caption="3.5 Beans out of 5."]
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