Outlandish, Part 2

Last week, I wrote of my enthusiasm for Jerry Goldsmith's score for the movie Outland. It prompted me to revisit the film itself, though this turned out to be a less than thrilling experience.

A rumor began circulating last year that someone was trying to direct a remake of this film. In my opinion, this is exactly the sort of film that should be remade. (Assuming one doesn't have an original idea to do instead, anyway.) Outland wasn't so good that the original deserves to be left alone, nor was it so bad that you can't understand what someone thinks might be salvaged there.

Of course, Outland is sort of a remake already, in that it's quite similar to the Western film High Noon. At least, so I've heard. I've never seen that film. But I can absolutely believe in the connection, watching Outland. I don't think you'd even have to be aware of the Western ties beforehand to pick up on it; from the first time someone calls this remote station on Io a "mining town," you start to view everything through that lens. And then you realize, the marshal actually was a marshall, the incoming shuttle was an arriving train, and so on.

I actually find it a very clever adaptation, if a little on the nose at times. But the concept is regrettably far better than the execution. First of all, it comes off very dated. This is 1981's version of the future, and sometimes looks pretty laughable nearly 30 years later. Secondly, the film doesn't seem to have much of its own vision of what it should look like; instead, it steals everything wholesale from the blockbuster film made two years before, Alien. They steal non-sensical things, like spacesuits with rope lights lining the insides of the helmets. They even steal the opening credits style, with the title slowly coalescing in the background as names run in the foreground.

Thirdly, you occasionally get the impression that even at the time, some of this was a little hokey. For example, every major death in the film occurs as the result of decompression, exposure to the vacuum of space. The first time or two, it's sort of novel. Near the end, when the hero destroys a hallway to kill the baddie inside, it's getting old. When another baddie, a supposedly crack sniper, just shoots a hole through the wall of the greenhouse he's standing in? Now the character is just being stupid, and the writer uncreative.

Fortunately, other characters are as interesting as this villain is dumb. The "old country doctor" is a highlight of the film, made all the more interesting in that it's a woman rather than a man. Frances Sternhagen is richly entertaining in the role, and her interactions with hero Sean Connery are really the best thing about the movie.

Peter Boyle plays the administrator of the "mining town," and is another strong presence in the film. He and the hero only get into a physical conflict in the very last moments of the film; for the bulk of the story, he is an intellectual heavy who tries first to reason, then to threaten. In the Western model, he'd be in the fancy suit, maybe even casually sitting at a poker table while others do his bidding. It's a bit of a throwback to have a villain who isn't a physical foil for the hero, and some might say that also dates the film. But I welcome this particular difference.

Still, a story that struggles to be compelling can only be so good, even with an interesting concept and good casting. So overall, I'd rate Outland a C+. (The "plus" might just be for that incredible musical score.) If you're way into sci-fi films and have somehow missed it, it might be one for you to check out. The rest of you will probably want to just skip it.