Outlander (2009)

Outlandish would have been a better title for a film that's great fun and quite exciting before eventually outstaying its welcome.

A film version of fish and chips — humble, honest fare that’s ludicrous, inventive, gory within limits, and has a cast having so much fun it’s hard not to be swept along with them. And besides, you can’t have nouvelle cuisine every night of the week.

Daft, obvious but hugely enjoyable, ‘Outlander’ is superior trash.

Sadly, the kooky premise of Outlander solidifies quickly into formula: monster is fought, fair maiden won, kingship gained and past errors redeemed with no real surprises along the way.

We are now deep, deep, deep into nerd territory, so deep you will get a nosebleed in your diving suit.

As the ginger offspring of a Ridley Scott/Peter Jackson gangbang, Outlander is a wannabe B movie classic that’s so shit, it’s just… shit!

An excellent creature feature. A B movie in the best sense of the word, Outlander could teach many of the so-called summer blockbusters a thing or two about character, story and performance.

It cracks along at a fair old pace…even if it is in a direction you won’t need sat-nav to predict.

This should have been a cracking genre piece – Vikings? Monsters? What’s not to like? – even if Beowulf hadn’t got there first. But despite the cool concept, it commits the cardinal sin of being a little too much on the dull side.

Combine this with a humourless screenplay and unimaginative direction, and Outlander is heavy going.