Outlander, le dernier Viking

"I sympatic "épic béčko", auquel je n'ai aucun problème à pardonner les effets numériques bon marché ou les clichés et le pathos, car on y ressent l'enthousiasme et l'amour pour tous ces genres "démodés" qui savent si bien divertir, ainsi que la capacité de jongler habilement avec eux. Et Caviezel s'est parfaitement adapté au super-héros de l'espace." (15/05/2010)

The fact that it's slightly better than Pathfinder isn't that big of a deal, but in any case, Outlander could have been better if it had clarified what it wanted to be. It smacks of B-movie (the first word in the quickly learned old Norwegian is "fuck"), but there’s far too much deadly seriousness. It's not a "guilty pleasure," it's not even shit worthy of a cesspool. It's a perfect example of how Hollywood can fuck up fifty million dollars (when it earns about 6 million :)). (05/10/2009)

A solid B-movie sci-fi from the days of my beloved Vikings. An excellent theme combining legends about dragons and a classic case of a space ship crashing on a blue planet is spoiled in places by a naive and predictable story. Even though Caviezel is right for the role of hunter, he doesn’t manage to carry the entire movie on his shoulders and without the help of Ron Perlman and John Hurt, I just don’t know how it would have turned out. But I have to praise director Howard McCain who clearly filmed something close to his heart and gave everything he had into it. Outlander has no chance against the A-movie competition, but it’s one of the best in its category. P.S. Was it just me, or did the Moorwens have Godzilla-like faces? :-) (01/02/2009)

Outlander is not a bad film. Certainly not by B-movie standards. So what do we have here? A cliché-variation on The 13th Warrior, but very pleasantly enriched with sci-fi elements. The special effects (we are still in B-movie waters) are not bad at all, except for one "dragging a guy through the wall" moment, the music is even very good, the actors too (that's because they are A-listers), the characters are mostly likable (but one of them really didn't have to be named Boromir), and the alien luminous beasts are good, it's fun to watch. The runtime doesn't matter, because whenever the film seems to run out of breath, there's a cool scene like a shield run or a flashback from outer space. Because of the sci-fi plot, I'd rather compare the film to 2010's Predators rather than the original Vikings. And although Vikings seemingly looks better, the film is a lot more boring, uninteresting and stupider. Biggest minus: A criminally underused Ron Perlman. (18/01/2012)