Movie Review - Outlander

As a kid, one of my favorite movie creatures was the large, mostly invisible, monster from the id in Forbidden Planet. It was incredibly scary, but filmed within the high-end limitations of 1956 movie technology.

Plans to remake Forbidden Planet are in the works, but the new movie Outlander, set for limited U.S. release on January 23 comes close to showing how that same mostly invisible monster might look with the technological advances available to today’s moviemakers.

The filmmakers did a nice job with the special effects, and they really did a nice job with the story. I don’t think any film has ever tried to portray the ancient Vikings as victims, but Outlander pulled it off nicely.

The term Outlander is defined as a foreigner, an alien, a stranger, or an outsider. Every definition fits the theme of the movie. The story follows an invader from another planet (Kainan – played by Jim Caviezel) who crash lands in Norway hundreds of years ago, along with his alien adversary, the Moorwen.

Kainan, a physically and emotionally broken warrior, comes to the aid of a local Viking tribe to try to defeat the Moorwen, using Iron Age technology.

It’s an interesting movie, but probably best left to mature audiences. My only real complaint was that Kainan’s first word upon learning the Viking language was dropping the F-Bomb. I guess it’s mostly guilt by association, since I instinctively associate Caviezel with his portrayal as Jesus in Passion of the Christ. That’s not his fault; it’s mine. He’s just an actor.