User reviews

Caught a screening of this last night in Berlin. Cinema was completely packed, not a spare seat in the house, and the crowd really seemed to enjoy it. I thought the film was great, really cool genre pic that comes across as a nice mixture of Predator/Braveheart/Beowulf, all the while managing to feel quite original on its own. Nice cast, Nice Script, and everything is handled a hell of a lot more intelligently than what you'd expect from a movie which is essentially 'Giant Alien Vs Vikings'. Why this is only getting such a limited release is beyond me, I think it could actually do quite well if given the chance. Basically anyone who enjoys Sci-Fi Action/Adventure done well should be looking forward to checking this one out when and if they get the chance.

Like a previous reviewer I don't know why this had a limited release. It is MUCH more value for ticket money than a number of other recent offerings and its faults are minor compared to the good qualities.

The story is basically a sci-fi plot but since the lead character's space ship crashes in the Iron Age, among Vikings, you can understand that most of the movie takes place with Viking themes and scenery.

The basic plot is quite sound and for the first 40 minutes the movie is VERY gripping. It tends to go a little flat at the end of the middle act and the start of the third act but effects, gore and very tense action compensate for those not too engrossed in the intricacies of the story. A pity about that because it looked like the story had more to offer and was chopped up somewhat to fit in a bunch of set pieces. I realize this is now making the movie sound a little lame: it isn't Lord of the Rings, but it is definitely worth the price of the ticket. See it expecting to be entertained for about 95% of the time and you wont be disappointed.

I must say that this film was a great surprise, not only because of my personal taste for sci-fi / fantasy flicks, but because this production is flawless.

I believe Howard McCain is set to be a true revelation as film maker and screen writer. There is no single bad moment in all the film.

Great work in photography and editing make of this film a visual accomplishment.

James Caviezel, John Hurt and Ron Perlman performances are excellent.

All FX are achieved, and the score by Geoff Zanelli is one to remember.

Maybe is something that we all have seen before, but never with this kind of achievement.

For all sci-fi / fantasy fans, this one is a MUST!

I was very skeptical before watching this film. Even if it got John Hurt and Ron Perlman in it, I just couldn't believe the SciFi/Norse legend combination would work. My instinct told me that this was going to be another of those horrible B-movies with a stupid story, sub-average effects and mediocre acting at best. I was, however, pleasantly surprised. Not that it is a masterpiece. The background story could have been a tad bit more elaborate, the plot more original and the final outcome a little bit less predictable, but all in all one has to acknowledge the decent effort to make this movie convincing and suspenseful. The end result is a solid piece of entertainment, with ample effects, directing I'd call 'by the book', workmanlike acting and a few kicks and thrills along the way. So if you happen to like action movies and don't ask for too much depth in the story, this will provide you with a 120 minutes amusement worth the time.

Outlandish. Howard McCain's Outlander may be the best B movie you never saw. This release dumped unceremoniously into theaters in the early year scrap heap is certainly a movie that is fully aware of its preposterous nature and approaches it with a straight face, a talented cast and premier production values that all work oddly well to produce an entertaining if far from perfect Sci-fi cult classic.

Originally slated for a normal wide release, a series of setbacks plagued production to an extent where it was deemed no longer feasible for such distribution. Why is this important you may ask? Well, thanks to the original and best laid plans producers threw a whopping $50 million into the film which provides us with some damn good effects for a film you would all but assume to be a low budget, straight to DVD release.

The plot is as tantalizing as they come; an alien, Kainan played by James Caviezel crash lands in ancient Nordish territory in the age of the Vikings. But along with his technology he brings a foreign parasite, a deadly creature known as the Moorwen. Caught in the middle of two warring Viking clans headed by Rogthgar (John Hurt) on one side and Gunnar (Ron Peralman) on the other, the primitive tribes must ban together to defeat their new common foe. oh yeah, it is in fact that awesome. The 'modern' story is framed by an interesting if slightly preachy back-story of past betrayal and genocide throughout the history of Kainnan's homeland.

After all this financial mumbo-jumbo is put to the side, what we are left with is a deliciously acted, well made period/sci-fi/creature feature/action film that only works at all due to all originality and the bizarreness of the plot. A few elements keep Outlander from being a cult-masterpiece however; it is too long, there are too many false climaxes and the goofy plot only just holds up. That being said the good news is that this film will make a quick trip to your local movie store bargain bin which means that you can score it for about the cost of a rental. Outlander is worth a look and even if you don't like it, you can't deny how perfectly it defines the so-bad-it's-good adage.

Read all my reviews at: http://www.simonsaysmovies.blogspot.com

Set during the kingdom of Vikings in Norway, as an aircraft crash lands on Earth, there appears a man from outer space, James Caviezel. He is imprisoned by the Vikings, later on, he is freed by the king : John Hurt who has daughter : Sophia Milos who falls in love for him and whose jealous suitor results to be a tribe's brave warrior : Jack Huston. And all of them join forces to vanquish a feared monster that's consuming everything in its path. As the man from a far-off world along with the Vikings face off an enormous beast, a huge panther-like creature that emerges from the night to slash, maul and and eat their victims' remains. It destroyed his world. He won't let it destroys ours.

This is a mixed bag mingling Vikings, extraterrestrial person and monsters in Alien Predator style . There is also a brief exploration of Viking life with rites, traditional habits and Gods .Taking parts here and there of other films as 13th warrior, Predator, and Beowulf . Some overwhelming wide screen images linger in the mind. At its best, this achieves the grandeur and beauty of a breathtaking Viking epic, at its worst, however, it feels an extravaganza blending various genres. Well starred by James Caviezel as a hero who's not from North but from outer space and relunctantly throws in his lot with these hairy-arsed, hard-drinking Nordic types to tackle a monstrous evil. He is finely accompanied by a nice cast as Sophia Milos, Jack Huston, John Hurt, Cliff Saunders and special mention for Ron Perlman as a two-fisted and tough warrior chief who seeks vengeance for death his wife and son.

It packs a moving and thrilling musical score by Geoff Zanelli. As well as evocative, though dark cinematography by Pierre Gill. The motion picture was well written and directed by Howard McCain. He is a good writer and director who has written and shot a few films. As he has written : Underworld rise of Lycans and filmed : Unspeakable, No dessert dad till you mow the lawn and this Outlander. Rating : 6.5/10. Well worth watching. The flick will appeal to Science-fiction and fantasy enthusiasts.

Essentially this is a high-concept sci-fi flick with a simple premise: it's PREDATOR, done in Viking times. Having an intense love of both Vikings and rampaging alien monsters, I hoped I'd be in for a treat with this movie. It turns out to be an entertaining if not remarkable vehicle that goes through the motions in a calm, assured way without ever offering much in the way of novelty.

The main problem is the script, which never seems to tackle some of the more interesting challenges the concept offers (such as the parallels with Beowulf or the stuff with the warring tribes). It's strictly by-the-numbers, with a clichéd view of the Viking age and art design that at all times is 'borrowed' from the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Realism/historical accuracy doesn't seem to be a high priority, either, with characters sporting such distinctly un-Viking names as Wulfric (Anglo-Saxon), and (God help me) Boromir.

Saying that, the monster design is strong, and the special effects are often dazzlingly spectacular. Another plus is the cast, which is better than you might expect for a traditional B-movie such as this. Jim Caviezel (THE PASSION OF THE Christ) is a strong silent type as the alien hero, John Hurt performs well as a 'crinkly old elder', Ron Perlman is unrecognisable as a frightening warrior-chief, Jack Huston is charming as a youthful leader, and Sophia Myles is lovely as, well, the love interest.

Altogether I found the film enjoyable if not profound, and if it pales in comparison to the classic monster movies of yesterday, it feels a lot better & more interesting than much similar fare (such as THE RELIC).

It's a real shame I haven't seen a single preview or a billboard for this movie. Whatever, though - the box office opportunity was wasted because someone or other didn't have faith in humanity (I mean seriously, anyone with a droplet of testosterone in them would find this highly entertaining, so of course there's a market for it), but this movie's cult status is assured.

Spaceship carrying terrifying bloodthirsty monster and a mysterious hero (well, not that mysterious) crash lands on Earth during Viking times. I repeat - Vikings! Swords, battles, mead- drinking and all-around Norse badarsery are featured prominently. The acting is good for the most part, the writing isn't stupid and formulaic, and the director keeps a brisk pace throughout the film. And the space monster is simply terrific, imbued with the perfect amount of personality.

If I was 10 years old when I watched it, I would have been running around on the ceiling for months. Being the mature and responsible grown man I am now, I didn't exactly do that - instead, I recommended it to all my friends and watched it 3 times.

I enjoyed this movie. It has a quite interesting story to it and I think they did pretty well. Since I'm a Nordic citizen I enjoyed the old-fashioned dialog in he beginning in the film. Quite authentic from what we know and very similar from what we speak today. The film let some areas untouched which to me seamed a bit dis-logical. But what to expect from an American production where most part of the move is supposed to be in (US)English (almost). But the aliens speaking ancient Nordic viking tongue, well.. Anyway, if you like the plot I think the money spent is well worth. You get 1h30m+ minutes worth of descent Sci-Fil/action plus some questions that might reach your mind. (Why is the spaceship shaped like the hammer of Thor for example ..)

I recommend it if you like this genre.

/Johan

If you're looking for a mix of action/adventure/scifi/fantasy, look no further. Whoop scratch that, you can find much better. But if you've seen a ton of films, then there's really no harm. But honestly, Outlander is as average as it gets.

The movie is about Caviziel aka Outlander, crash-landing on Earth. To be more precise, Norway 790 AD. The era of Viking power. I love Viking stuff, they're pretty much the epitome of manliness. F@ck the pirates, the ninjas and all those wimps. Brute strength and beards is where it's at. Anyways, he crashes with a blood-thirsty creature on board, and now it's loose. Now it's up to him and the Viking people to stop it.

I really didn't expect much going into Outlander besides some cool special effects and some nice cinematography. Well, Caviziel's a good actor so I was hoping he'd be good as well. All of that was fine. The creature was cool looking, the shots were stylish, and Jesus Boy did an alright job. But boy-howdy is this flick cheesy. Holy crap. The writing and characters in this film are seriously laugh worthy. Watch it with a friend and just sit back and make fun. During the film my brother and I were shouting out things like, "I am Sh!t-Beard.", "Outlander? More like the Pedophiler.", and just simply screaming "Outlander". Trust me on this one, this is one movie NOT to take seriously. The emotional scenes are sooo laughable. The lines are predictable, the characters silly, the action too dark....but the movie was still kinda fun.

It's rare when you get a big-budget flick action flick like this and it turns out to be a cheeseball. It's pretty startling some people actually fell for the emotion, but if you've got any of your wits about you, your first reaction will be a smile. Sit back, get a funny friend, maybe some brews, enjoy the action, and laugh at everything else. Oh, Ron Perlman was in it too, and played a pretty sweet part as a huge viking!

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.

Outlander is not going to win any awards, but for what it is, it is a solid genre flick. It might not have a broad appeal outside of SF fans, but it is one of those under the radar modern day "B" movies that actually has a lot to offer (think Pitch Black or Reign of Fire). The cast, direction, and cinematography are all solid to very good. While the story falls a little too often into genre clichés, the characters are interesting and there are enough plot twists and new additions to warrant this movie a star or two for small innovations. I'm thinking especially of the clever way the film makers address the language barrier and the origin of the feud between the Moorwin and humans as providing interesting twists to what could have been rote clichés. The film is a little over-long by about 15 min, but that's quibbling.

The monster itself, the Moorwin, is worth the price of admission alone. Although it resembles in form some of the more well-known alien menaces from the last 20 years, it's phosphorescent skin and blood are a very cool innovation and are also visually exciting.

Bottom line is if you are interested in a film whose subject matter is Vikings fighting an alien monster with lots of action and some small sparks of innovation, then you will not be disappointed.

There's really not much to be said here... The script was appalling and didn't give anything to Jim Caviezel or John Hurt. Their acting look bad anyway. The amount of cheese and clichés that arose during the film made me want to be sick as well... Terrible special effects and I can't stress more at the sheer waste of talent!! Why agree to the script?!?! The closest comparison I can think of to this movie is Attack of the Sabretooth which is probably the worst movie ever made. Watch that first and you'll laugh harder at this. The goofs were also very obvious. Seeing as the protagonist can read English in the beginning of the film yet he speaks 'alienese'... strange.

OK, there was some amusement that came from the movie. Although it felt like 100 minutes of slow torture, the sheer hilarity of the movie TRYING it's hardest to be profound will make you giggle. If you can see how bad this really is.

During the reign of the Vikings, a man from another planet crash lands on Earth and unfortunately brings with him a giant alien beast known as the Moorwen. Not only that, but once assimilating himself with this particular Viking faction, he finds that he is now part of a war they are engaged in with another Viking race.

Yep, it's predator in the Viking age, berserker sci-fi played purely for entertainment and cheese sandwiches. Jesus Jimmy Caviezel brings the broody macho posturing, John Hurt the ham, while Ron Perlman picks up an easy pay check for growling a lot. It's still a lot of fun, though, the mixture of TV movie type production values mixing with a cheeky idea that sees the creation of a genuinely cool monster (effects not half bad at all). Good genre action for the undemanding genre faithful. 6/10

I had never seen the trailer of this movie nor any much publicity whatsoever,but it came as a clear surprise for me after getting to watch it,i liked it very much.So sad that i ended up watching in a DVD. You have the Viking battles,good storyline,very good CGI and special effects,with equally complementing soundtrack. The actors have rendered their skills to the best,the screenplay was great and overall the characters are well delivered. The story is of an Outlander from a different planet who ends up in a ship crash on NORSE territory-planet earth!But the ship has brought along an alien trouble-a species called Moorven/Moorwen.Kainan(James Caviezel) is treated as an Outlander,he has to prove his worth and also tell the vikings of the alien trouble he has bought along.And henceforth the plot flows. The Movie has got breathtaking locations,viking costumes,"the shields" game,all was just entertaining.It has abundant gore too,of course its a viking movie after all! Anyways guys its a perfect perfect perfect snack for your pop corns!Rent it or buy it!

Much like 'The 13th Warrior' (1999), 2008's 'Outlander' is a "What if?" take on the classic Beowulf poem. As in "What if the story was not a myth, but based on an actual event". But whereas 'Warrior' is more grounded, with the fantastical ultimately proven to be a product of superstition, here there's a science fiction element that gives the film a bit of a 'Predator' vibe.

Some dodgy f/x work aside (both a product of the time it was made and budgetary constraints), this is a well made film in every sense. It looks good, it's well written and well acted. The score is above board and suitably epic when it needs to be. In short, it's entertaining and, like 'The 13th Warrior' (a far superior film by the way), it deserved a much better fate.

I watched this film today with fingers crossed that it would add up to a decent enough film. However this film ended up exceeding those expectations, with a pretty good plot, a cast which was decent enough (with a few minor blips that I'm willing to overlook) and action sequences that are quite creative and thrilling to watch. At times parts of this film reminded me of The 13th Warrior, with a little Beowulf sprinkled on top. You certainly won't get bored watching this film. I'm surprised that this film did not get a little more attention, as it deserves it, but there you go. If you like to see aliens get hacked away by men in beards, this is the film for you!

OUTLANDER is a sci-fi / fantasy / monster movie with plenty of sword-clanking battle action and heroics. Jim Caveizel plays Kainan, an extraterrestrial who crash-lands on Earth during the iron age. Kainan soon finds himself in the middle of a war between two Viking tribes.

This skirmish turns out to be the least of Kainan's problems, when a seemingly unstoppable creature shows up, wiping out entire villages.

Can Kainan unite the Viking enemies in order to kill this cunning, insatiable beast?

It's surprising how few had seen or even heard of this movie when it first came out. Thankfully, it picked up steam over the years. If you're a fan of the aforementioned genres, then you should definitely watch this.

Co-stars the wonderful John Hurt and Sophia Miles, as well as the one-and-only Ron Perlman as a war hammer-wielding Viking bada$$!...

From an interesting if not ambitious premise, this film manages some visually atmospheric scenes and grandiose scenery that is cleverly underlined by a generally superb musical score. Unfortunately however, that is where the superlatives must end.

Aside from some isolated moments of authenticity from Myles and Hurt, the acting is comprehensively wooden, the script infinitely shallow and the plot riddled with enough cringe-worthy clichés to warrant clenched teeth and wrinkled nose on more than one occasion.

Even so, this film might have escaped with a less scathing review if it wasn't for the sub-standard quality of the action and lack of overall pace.

Whether due to the expense of special effects involved or simply poor workmanship, most of the action scenes are poorly shot - often in dim or obscured surrounds not to mention bland camera work - and the approach is far more identifiable with that of a drama than what you might expect from an action genre film.

Equally, the sci-fi element is almost non-existent in that it is used to introduce us to the setting, but quickly sinks into obscurity along with the rest of the plot.

If anything, this is more a generic love-triangle story in a picturesque setting than a high paced adrenaline-laden romp through the ages.

When all is said and done there are still some fleeting moments of excitement amongst the predictability and clichés, but if you're expecting a roller-coaster ride you may want to replace your seat-belt with an uncomfortable pillow to avoid disappointment.