In OUTLANDER Jim Caviezel plays an alien hunter so utterly deadpan he makes his PASSION OF THE CHRIST role seem flighty and vivacious. Somewhen in the Viking Iron Age, an extraterrestrial named Kainan (Caviezel) crashlands his space ship, sends it hurtling into the Scandinavian drink. His crew all dead and now bereft of his hi-tech weaponry, the stranded Kainan sets out on his mission to capture the man-eating alien predator called a Moorwen. But, while tracking the monster, Kainan is captured by a group of Vikings and taken to their compound. Not too long after, something begins to make raids on the Vikings' home and territory. Prevailing theories offer a dragon and a bear, and, oboy, does that ever get these doughty Vikings all fired up. Off they go, a-huntin', with their clean-shaven captive in tow.
OUTLANDER, when broken down, is essentially PREDATOR reimagined in old Norway and peopled with medieval, bearded, grog-swilling Norsemen and an intense spaceman. Some bells and whistles are thrown in, like John Hurt as King Hrothgar, Ron Perlman as a bald-headed Viking, and Sophia Myles as the Viking princess, Freya, who knows her way around a sword and isn't shy about baring her midriff, never mind that the near freezing climate seems to dictate bundling up in layers.
Early on, Kainan's computer indicates that Earth is an abandoned seed colony, and it would've been nice if the film had touched more on that. And for someone coming from an advanced culture and superior technology, Kainan isn't allowed a lot of chances to flaunt his stuff as such. Heck, the gent from A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT exercised his futuristic expertise more. Instead, Kainan finds himself immersed into the Vikings' hardy way of life, gradually celebrated in King Hrothgar's mead hall and romancing the king's feisty daughter. However, the best relationship here is the one that develops between Kainan and his warrior rival Wulfric (Jack Huston).
OUTLANDER is better than PATHFINDER (another recent film about Vikings), but it's sort of like saying that a paper cut is better than a poke in the eye. One's marginally preferrable but, mostly, you'd still rather not have both. OUTLANDER's achievement is that it combines Vikings and space aliens and still manages to come away with a story that is predictable and tame. Character development is nil, with these stock characters simply refusing to stand out. Sorry to say, Jim Caviezel, as an action hero, comes across as bland.
Not the acting, not the plot, but there are some saving graces. I thought the CG work is well rendered on the Moorwen, and I especially liked the bioluminescent touch. The several shifts in venue - the dark woods to the mead hall to the hellish caverns - serve to infuse energy, help to fight off that sense of staidness (but it's a losing battle). And I thought that the game of balance on shields (held up by drunken Vikings) was pretty cool.
A slightly better than average 3 out of 5 stars for OUTLANDER. I recommend it mostly for the well-done sci-fi action sequences. Hopefully, the writers of the upcoming COWBOYS AND ALIENS view OUTLANDER as a cautionary tale and learn from it.