Outlander (Howard McCain 2008)
Posted on February 18 at 20.56, 2009 by Eric Mahleb
Outlander is an expensive B-movie that tries to be more than that. It fails at it but does not feel overly arrogant while trying. That is not to say that it constantly deals with its subject matter in an effective way but it seems to be satisfied with targeting a certain audience and to provide this audience with as solid of an experience as possible. Of course, when it comes to a story about a man from the future crash landing in 8th century Norway, there is plenty of room for subjectivity in how one appraises the merits of such a film.
What makes Outlander better trash than for example Eagle Eye (2008) or The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) is that it does not pretend to know how to deal with big philosophical questions and it does not tie its story to the ‘real’. By releasing itself from the shackles of reality, that is, by taking place in a fantasy world, Outlander does not have to meet the stricter believability standards of films that relate to our modern society.
That being said, Outlander is still a very average film. Instead of aiming for the level of The Navigator (1988), or even better, for the level of Planet of the Apes (1968), the best time travel movie ever made, the movie turns into some kind of Predator-type monster flick with weak undertones of Excalibur (1981), a Beowulf (2007) that can not use animation as an excuse for its weaknesses. A strange but interesting mix that could have worked better had the director not decided that an avalanche of gore was in order. And that James Caviezel should play in the lead role…
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