Aliens. Vikings. Jesus. Is "Outlander" the film of the year? (Fuck you, Michael Haneke.)

So I finally caught up with Outlander recently... Funnily, it's not exactly The Battle of Algiers, but if you're looking for a little bit of hot "Viking vs. Alien" action then get ready to meet your new favourite film. Featuring a veritable shit-fest of ham-packed performances and some of the hokiest CG you'll this side of Giant Shark Vs. Mega Octopus, Howard McCain's sci-fi actioner wears its B-movie credentials on its sleeve, coming across like a low-rent Predator via Beowulf.

Sound good? Absolutely, and for much of its 90 minutes, Outlander delivers on its promise of good, old-fashioned cheap and cheerfuls. Limbs get ripped, bits get hacked and the alien beast thing quickly makes mince-meat out of the hapless Viking hordes. In other words, it's shit and it knows it is. Nothing wrong with that.

It's not all fun and games, however. The action's fairly perfunctory and despite the occasional glimpse of splatter, the film feels bloodless (there are a couple of disembowellings but really, this is all PG-13 stuff - expect anything more spicy and you'll just end up disappointed.) Needless to say, John Hurt's clearly slumming it here and Jim Cavaziel displays all the charisma of a nail in the face. Thank goodness, then, for nasty old Ron Perlman who cranks up the camp and gets completely Scandanavian on the asses of all involved, despite relatively little screen time.

There's a large chunk of exposition at the beginning of the final act that fleshes out Cavaziel's character and tells you all about the alien's origins, but in reality it's completely unnecessary and just delays the action. And a bizarre banquet scene in which Cavaziel and Jack Huston (like a prettier, cheaper Karl Urban) demonstrate their sheer, sweaty manliness (and bond!) by drunkenly racing across some upturned shields feels like it's from a completely different movie.

And yet, Outlander is never completely terrible, just bland, and happily kills 90 minutes without offending anyone. Direction is serviceable and production values exactly what you'd expect from this kind of low-budget potboiler. The thing is, that concept, that original pitch is a killer, and you're left wondering what someone like Sam Raimi in his Evil Dead prime, or even Guillermo Del Toro could do with this material.