Screenhead

What happens when you give Vikings science fiction weaponry and send them to do battle with a creature straight out of a horror flick?

Well…it probably wouldn’t actually look much like Outlander, but hey; at least they tried!

Seriously, though–as glib as my description sounds, it’s actually not too far off from the truth.  An alien, played almost inexplicably by former Jesus analogue Jim Caviezel, flees an interstellar war only to land on Earth.  He’s crash landed on the shores of Norway, circa, oh, seven hundred AD or so.  But he’s brought company along for the ride–a huge murderous alien called the Moorwen, who immediately begins tearing holy hell out of the immediate Norwegian area.  Thus, it’s left to our alien buddy to recruit some good old fashioned Norse help and go hunt up the Moorwen before it turns Scandinavia into the biggest all you can eat buffet on Earth.

First off, as science fiction-based action epics go, Outlander is both terribly predictable and yet at the same time not bad for it.  It’s a lot like, say, Beowulf or The 13th Warrior or any of a dozen other hack-and-slays just like this except with the added twist of having aliens involved.

Second, the plot additions do trend a bit toward the far-fetched.  I’m amply familiar with the panspermia theory–frankly, I think it’s a load–and so every time I see a movie that uses the plotline that Earth is just a seed colony of some alien race I find myselfscoffing contemptuously at the very idea.  However, this is a small point, and really won’t interfere with the movie itself.

The movie itself, meanwhile, is really quite fun.  They’ve added some really novel twists to it–like the Shields game–that definitely caught my attention.  I’ve seen my share of movies like this, and this might well be one of the best of the lot I’ve seen in some time.  They really did play up the “epic” side of this one, with some infighting and some outfighting and even just a little bit of the old political intrigue just to round things out.  It’s really not just “alien humanoid goes hunting up alien monstrosity”.  There’s quite a bit more to it than that.

Regrettably, the “sci-fi weaponry” I mentioned above will be in short supply, at least when it comes to doling them out to the Vikings.  You’ll get to see some of it in action, and it’s downright awesome, but frankly there’s not much of it involved here.  And that which is actually involved is only involved in the most roundabout of senses.  I’m perplexed as to how this giant, clearly military ship was only carrying ONE GUN.  And while I’m at it, what happened to alien boy’s clearly superior armor?  He took it off at the crash site and then just sort of forgot about it.  Was it carried away by animals?   In that sense, it’s somewhat of a disappointment but there’s still plenty of joy to be had here.  Thus, the disappointment is scarcely too graphic.

The Screenhead Ten Scale,therefore, gives this one a seven out of ten for being an engaging if flawed action thriller, that’s so very much like that which has come before it, and at the same time, offering some fresh new features that make it well worth watching.

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