The first movie review to kick off this new section is Outlander.
Outlander, a film that had raw potential squandered away due to Hollywood’s lack of foresight into releasing quality films. This film was a lost gem that was hidden away in obscurity… until now.
Released in January 23, 2009 in very limited theaters, the film stars Jim Caviezel (from Passion of the Christ fame) as Kainan the Outlander, Sophia Myles (Underworld) as Freya, the daughter of King Rothgar, Jack Huston (Twilight, Boardwalk Empire) as Wulfric, the heir to King Rothgar’s throne, John Hurt (Alien, Hellboy, Lord of the Rings (1978). Talk about a Heavy Metal entertainer resume.) as Rothgar, King of Heorot and Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy, Hellboy. Damn, some Metal movie and tv shows under his belt.) as Gunnar, King of a neighboring village.
The film starts with Kainans spaceship crash landing in Norway during the year 709AD (about a good of a time to crash land a space vessel than ever.).
Kainan manages to survive the wreck and he has a flashback of his family from another planet.
When Kainan wakes up, he swims into the lake where the vessel landed and retrieves a device that has information on other worlds. The technology of Kainans people is very advanced, that it grants Kainans brain all the information about planet earth including the language spoken in the region (Norse, a very Metal language). The device also acts as a homing beacon to summon a rescue vessel.
With the beacon now activated, Kainan grabs a gun and begins hunting for something.
As he wonders around the woods, he encounters a village that was destroyed with it’s inhabitants dead or missing.
He inspects the damage on a door, and sees claw marks on a door. Looks like we have our first glimpse of what the films antagonist can do.
As Kainan inspects the destroyed village further, he hears a noise and Wulfric from the rival village Heorot comes in and knocks him out while riding his horse. If you want to cold clock someone, might as well do it majestically (Power Metal style).
Wulfric takes Kainan to the village, where the Vikings are going about their daily routine.
We than meet Freya and Rothgar, and they talk about Freyas marriage to Wulfric during sword combat practice. If their ever was a Metal way of talking to your daughter about marriage, this is it.
Kainan is interrogated by Wulfric and is asked what was he doing in the rival village, to which Kainan replies he is hunting dragons. The Vikings don’t buy it, but considering the tall tales of Viking folklore, they should have at least ran with it.
While locked up in Viking prison, Freya comes to provide Kainan some water and to clean him up a bit, to which Kainan thanks her by slugging her square in the face and flees.
As Kainan makes an attempt at escape, the dragon finally makes his appearance by attacking and killing some of the Vikings. The Vikings at first think it is the rival village that has come to attack, but as they will soon learn, the tall tales of dragon folklore will shatter the boundaries of fantasy and reality.
The beast in question is not a dragon, but rather a Moorwen, a beast from another planet who managed to stowaway in Kainans ship.
Once the Moorwen is done with his business at the village, he leaves in its path death and destruction, to which a recaptured Kainan begins to recollect his past with more details and a very familiar claw mark.
The Vikings are now thriving in fear with confusion added to the dose, and as they process their slain brothers carcasses and realize it was something very inhuman that committed the deed, they are coming to grips with the situation that the dragon Kainan spoke about is as real as the mead they drink. The following day, King Rothgar decides to interrogate the Outlander. Kainan tells the king that he bought the beast with him in his vessel, and knows that the Vikings will hunt the predator and asks to join them.
As Kainan and the rest of the Vikings saddle up, Freya returns Kainans out of this world gesture by slugging him, leaving him only the humiliation of the laughter of the first Metalheads (the Vikings).
To end the first part of this post, and speaking of mead, one of the Vikings had a very interesting liquid container to drink his nectar of the gods.
Continue to part 2...
No comments:
Post a Comment