A spaceship crash-lands in a Viking fjord, survived by a humanoid soldier from an interstellar army… and something else. Outlander, a mid-budget movie, features a great principle cast: Jim Caviezel as the alien warrior and John Hurt as the ageing Viking leader, while Sophia Myles is brilliantly cast against type as a flame-haired, sword wielding Viking princess. The monster that has been unleashed on the Viking homestead, complicating the local and inter-tribal tensions, is also excellent even though it is yet another Giger-inspired alien, and the war against it is action-packed: Caviezel’s warrior has superior knowledge of how to fight it, but none of his advanced technology to back him up, and not everything goes to plan.The real stars of this film though are the legion of extras – Viking re-enactment enthusiasts – who make up the tribe and bring the massed battle and scenes of drunken celebration to life. A few sequences are over-long but they are the exception in this wonderful film.
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