The Principals: Peter Hyams (director / writer), Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen (actors)
The Premise: It’s basically a remake of High Noon that’s set on Io (Jupiter’s moon), with Sean Connery playing the Gary Cooper/badass lawmaker role. He ends up butting heads with the head of the place (Peter Boyle), an evil money-hungry bastard who keeps his workers hopped up on drugs that double their productivity, with the side effect of making them insane. When the accidents and murders start to mount, Connery won’t hesitate to get to the bottom of things.
Is it Good: Oh yeah. The 1981 effects still hold up, and watching Connery put together all the pieces of the puzzle and take the bad guys down in violent 80s-movie fashion just as entertaining as it sounds. Plus, you’ve got people going space-crazy and killing themselves in all kinds of gory, vacuum-enhanced ways. One guys steps into an airlock sans suit (it’s messy), and the poor fellow below thinks he has spiders all over him and tries to get at them, forgetting he’s working in space.
“That’s enough air, Cohaagen!”
Is it Worth a Look: Hell yes. Especially if you just saw Duncan Jones’ excellent Moon and want to see where its roots lay. Along with Alien and space hippy film Silent Running, this was a massive influence on the look and feel of the film, although it contains about 1000% more action. Boyle is having so much fun here playing such a cocky corporate prick that you can’t wait for Connery to man up and take him down.
In space, no one can hear you play racketball.
Random Anecdotes: I’ve been on a real 80s scifi kick lately, and this made a great double feature with Michael Crichton’s fun and ridiculous Runaway. The old future tech never ceases to amuse. If any movie needs a remastering though, Outland is it. The current dvd looks atrocious, and it’s only available in fullscreen on Netflix Instant. Someone whip up a blu-ray of this sucker asap!
Purchase from Amazon on Regular DVD.
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9 comments
I actually just watched this a few weeks ago. Really, really cool film. It's weird how hit or miss Hyams is.
Outland is without doubt one of the best, most enjoyable pieces of scifi from the last 4 decades. For my money it's Connery's best film – I know many will disagree but hey, that's personal opinion for you. The effects are still great, the acting brilliant and the story simple but engrossing. Great stuff from beginning to end and it's great picking out all the things Duncan Jones picked out to replicate in Moon – the shape of the refinery, he used as the relief shuttle amongst other things. And hey for the shoutout to Runaway – another brilliant slice of 80's scifi heaven.
I unashamedly love this film. I videoed it off the telly when it was on at some point and rinsed the tape to the point it became unwatchable.
I remember watching it first as a kid and being freaked out about explosive decompression to the point where I worried about getting in lifts that went below ground. Good times.
Great movie! A simple western set in space. Why have so few people even heard of this little classic?
If this is released on blu-ray, it will be a definate day 1 purchase for me. Personally I think Hyams is a hugely underrated "genre" director. Even his lesser films, like the Relic, Capricorn One, End of Days and yes, even A Sound of Thunder are all entertaining in their own schlocky way. Speaking of Peter Hyams, you MUST check out the new Universal Soldier film. Pretty top notch stuff. The old man has still got it.
The new Universal Soldier was directed by Peter Hyams son. Peter was only the director of photography on that one…
What is it with Chud and "of the day" articles? These are never "of the day" and rarely get posted, so why don't you call them "of the month" or something more realistic?
I remember enjoying this but also remember reading a really vicious critique of it by Harlan Ellison … he hated it for not being scientifically accurate or something. The piece is in one of his anthologies of critical writing.
I had never seen this until it was on HDNet Movies sometime last year. Totally blew me away, great movie.
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