Sloth

Outlander

What’s it about?

Monster hunter from space crash-lands next to a Viking village in 700AD, accidentally releasing said monster to munch on the unsuspecting sons of Odin.

Any chicks in the movie?
Sophia Myles (dependable as always as the semi-hot British chick in a genre movie) as Viking king John Hurt’s spunky daughter. You can tell she’s spunky because she has red hair. It’s a total giveaway. Alas, no nudity, because when you’re fighting a hellbeast from Arcturus, who has time for nooky?

Awesomeness Factor?
There are two types of people in this world. The majority of people, who belong in the first group, wouldn’t give a movie about Vikings fighting aliens a second glance on their way to rent whatever insipid romantic comedy starring a non-naked Jennifer Aniston got released this week. You know – normal fucking people. The second group, whom we refer to as Dudes*, would stop dead at the sight of this DVD cover while their brain desperately tried to make sense of a universe that only chose now, some hundred years after the invention of cinema, to make a ALIEN VERSUS VIKING PICTURE. With such a solid gold concept, Outlander would have to be an epic failure of Uwe Boll proportions for me to dislike it. But luckily, Odin smiled upon Outlander and gave it his bloody blessing: sure, you won’t convince your wife or asshole art-snob friends to watch this anytime soon, but this is actually a hell of a lot better than it has any right to be. Sure, the Vikings have about as much historical authenticty as a fat-ass drunken LARPer has to Orlando Bloom, but nobody gives a shit about actual Vikings. I want to see the Vikings of my mind who, not coincidentally, look exactly like bald, bearded, face-tattoed Ron Perleman, swinging war hammers the size of small dogs and screaming things like “I WILL TEAR YOUR BLEEDING HEART FROM YOUR BODY!!!” Still, when you have an alien vs. Vikings movie, the Vikings are only half the equation. But again, Outlander comes through with a fabulous monster, which appears to be what would happen if a chimera hatefucked a Balrog. They even manage to (SPOILER!) set the thing on fire, which is like fifteen kinds of awesome right fucking there. Amazingly, the sci-fi elements of the story are equally strong, looking like what I assume the guys who made The Chronicles Of Riddick were aiming for but didn’t quite reach. Outlander isn’t a smart movie, exactly – but it is as smart as it needs to be. Which, when it comes to all things Dude Movie, is just enough.

Mitigated by?
I eagerly await the inevitable fan-edit that tosses the Howard Shore knock-off score for bitchin’ battle metal.

* Something I’ve been meaning to explain about Dude Movies – the term “dudes” neither respects or implies gender. To be a Dude, and by extension a lover of movies aimed at Dudes, you don’t actually have to be swinging pipe. Rather, Dudeness is a state of mind, one that is encapsulated almost entirely by the abstract concept of a movie like Outlander. Here lies the essence of Dudeosity: you looked at that poster, and the very first thing you asked yourself was “How is Vin Diesel not in this movie?”