"Outlander" starts so strong. An alien 'man' crash lands a spaceship on Earth and with the use of his advanced technolgies painfully aquaints himself with the new world. Truth be told there's nothing particularily 'new' about his surroundings because he's landed during the time of the Vikings. These opening moments are the very best parts of "Outlander". From this point the lead character played in a very appealing and low-key manner by Jim Caviezel predictably bumps into the Vikings and things get a little boring while they become familiar with each other. The action then escalates and we've learned enough about the characters to care about what happens to them when a strange and fierce enemy enters their village. The bummer is that this movie starts in such a promising fashion. The alien from the future that experiences this ancient new world ends up at one point getting drunk and eating with his hands with a bunch of the usual dirty sword-carrying primatives. Blah. It all goes the wrong direction for me but I did like the performance of Caviezel the design of the enemy and the cool opening.

Bon film qui mêle habilement plusieurs styles (la science fiction, les vikings, l'épouvante...) sans sombrer dans le ridicule. Bien réalisé, bien interprété, les personnages sont attachants et l'histoire intéressante. Un récit tendu et violent, parsemé de quelques pointes d'humour, saupoudré d'une très légère touche de romance, font de ce film un spectacle agréable à suivre durant lequel on ne s'ennuie jamais. À découvrir !

An alien and a man from the stars among the Vikings.

It's sci-fi, fantasy, action - those movies has been done before and after and this is not the worst of it's kind. It could have actually been from the 1990s when things like plothole and dialogue where not called out each and every instance. There is some kind of story that fits with the genre. Sure, it's paint by numbers in many ways but that doesn't necessarily have to be always bad. [spoiler] In fact I wondered if maybe they were taking some inspiration from the monster Grendel out of Beowulf. Concerning the monster I really liked that it's not just the mindless, evil killer. It has intelligence, a reason, and a very good one at that. It fights for his habitat, his survival and that of his offspring. It's as much an Avenger as is it's hunter. [/spoiler] That alone gives the story more depth then similar movies I've seen. I only knew Caviezel from P.o.I. and he doesn't look out of place. I understand he was far from the first choice for the role but he sold the character for me. Having John Hurt and Ron Pearlman (who is always bada**) is a bonus. Jack Huston looked a bit too much pretty-boy for me. Myles did better in seeling the damsel-in-distress part then the female warrior but at the same time she wasn't at all awful. Concerning the fact this is 2008 and the movie does had a rather small budget the CGI was good. You get away with things when its dark but it still is a good design and is terrifying enough. So, why was this movie a financial desaster ? Probably advertisement I guess. I had no idea it exsited until I saw the disc on a bargain bin table for a few quid and thought it can't be that bad. Surprise, surprise. Enjoy it for what it is, like I did, or leave it be.