Travelers are sometimes forced to take a detour or make a stopover, brief or otherwise. The places where they are grounded are often strange. They may love or hate it at first sight. Later, their opinions and tastes may change. In Outlander, a man from outer space, Kainan (Jim Caviezel), finds himself in one such situation.
709 A.D., Norway. A spaceship crash lands into the sea and two aliens emerge from it: one, a carnivorous, dragon, and the other, a human being. Retrieving a computerized gadget from the wreckage, Kainan presses his eye to the eyepiece. In a few seconds, all that he needs to know about his surroundings, its inhabitants, and their language is downloaded into his brain.
You know that this period film is not at all intended to be accurate when you hear the first thing that the spaceman mutters after transferring the dialect of this Nordic tribe into his brain: the famous four-letter word starting with an F. Looking at him, you think: it’s ludicrous, this idea of the existence of another species exactly identical to us. But later, you’re told that he’s actually originally from this planet. That kind of crap.
How instinctive and sensible is he? Well, he goes hunting for the dragon, eyes roving all over the place, a space gun held in both his hands ready to fire at the first moving thing that he sees. The next thing you know someone on an ordinary horse knocks him out and he’s tied and being dragged to a village. So much for all his advanced, scientific knowledge.
The king’s daughter (Sophia Myles) is an excellent swordswoman. She’s strong, and seems quite capable of taking care of herself. It’s rather strange, therefore, that her father wishes her to marry someone who can protect her.
The crown prince, who has an eye for the princess, is the dumbest of all. After bloodying and chaining up the prisoner, who happens to be quite charming, the prince asks her to nurse the prisoner! That’s like literally begging for trouble. Caviezel and Myles share a wonderful chemistry.
Pretty women are known to have changed the mind and course of many a warrior in history. In Howard McCain’s sci-fi /period /battle film—enhanced by good photography but destroyed by action that is as amateurish as the acting—the presence of the princess compels someone to make a choice, perhaps, of an entire lifetime.
