Outlander

It's Vikings vs. Aliens when an extraterrestrial soldier crash lands in medieval Norway and joins forces with the local barbarian tribes to take on a ferocious space lizard sporting a fiery temperament. James Caviezel plays Kainan, the outlander from the stars who wears a spacesuit that looks like a suit of armor and carries a computer that uploads the local Norse language directly into his brain. Kainan is on a mission: turns out that the fire-breathing, glow-in-the-dark dragon escaped from his ship, and it takes some time for him to convince the suspicious Viking king (John Hurt), his hotheaded son (Jack Huston), or the rival tribe (led by a big, bad, and bald Ron Perlman) that this is the creature that has been killing the locals. This science fiction twist on Norse history, mythological fantasy, and barbarian movie machismo features brawny action but a skimpy script with unimaginative characters, mundane dialogue, and routine plot twists. Co-starring Sophia Myles as a warrior princess and obligatory love interest, director/co-writer Howard McCain's Outlander draws ideas from the heroic odysseys of numerous cultural mythologies but fails to do much with them in this tepid interstellar variant on Beowulf. Not a necessary purchase. (S. Axmaker)