Outland

After leaving the James Bond franchise in 1971, Sean Connery gave a number of notable performances in films such as The Offense and The Man Who Would Be King but Outland is really the film that started him on the comeback trail that culminated with his Oscar acceptance speech 6 yrs later for The Untouchables. No one seems to recall this but at the time of Outland's release, no one had seen or heard from Connery for a few years and most of the reviews, while not kind to the film for a variety of reasons--chief among them being the fact that most movie critics (at least back then) harbored serious prejudice against sci fi--the main comment was "It is good to see Sean Connery back in action again".

This film has one of the best production designs ever.Phillip Harrison did a superb job. Obviously the look was copped from Alien--blue collar workers in space--but it works remarkably well. I was often reminded of OUTLAND during my seven year prison term; the housing was remarkably similar--as was the company. But I digress...

Nothing special about the plot-- it's routine cop show or western movie stuff--but who cares? Sean Connery gives a splendid performance and the whole film moves at a nice clip. Very enjoyable.

With the late 70's giving us Star Wars and Alien, these films inspired a barrage of filmmakers to have a more realistic edge with sci-fi. Outland is no exception and while the film is heavily flawed, it's a decent sci-fi movie with lots of twists and turns to keep you engaged.

The miniatures and models look fantastic and still hold up today in my opinion. It inhabits that Alien mining operation look throughout and Peter Hyams did a great job on an aesthetic point of view. It's not as detailed as Alien, but what is?

The story is also pretty well written and many have labelled it as High Noon in space. It definitely has that western feeling especially with the showdown climax and your typical western pistols have been replaced with shotguns.

Sean Connery delivers a great performance and I would say this is one of his best post Bond films along with The Name of the Rose.

Despite these positives there are quite a few negatives. The explosive decompression scenes are quite dated and are unintentionally hilarious with peoples heads inflating like balloons. The child actor who plays Marshall O Neill's son is quite possibly the worst child actor ever! It takes you out of the movie for a while but thankfully it's only a brief scene.

If you haven't seen this I would recommend Outland, especially if you're a fan of Alien or any other industrial sci-fi movie from that era. It's quite overlooked so definitely give it a look.

Outland is brilliant. So many good moments in the movie -the first time you see someones head explode from change of pressure, the bloodied elevator as it returns from the bottom of the mining shaft and the overall excellent visionary style of the mining colony. Connery is perfectly cast as the marshall who cannot be bought and Frances Sternhagen brings much needed warm relief from the terror with her smart, down-to-earth manner. Hyams directs the film with excellent vigour and his choice of filters and lighting, (especially the scene in the prostitues room which is blood red from the emergency lighting), gives an instant impression of heat, fear and so cool relief from the space shots. It could quite easily be overlooked as just another sci-fi flick but I think it established much more the benefits of bringing earth-realism to outer-space than any other film in it's day.(Probably best to watch it, as I did, when you are 10 years old!!)

Sean Connery. A man's man, a woman's sex symbol. Good start! Now let's put him on a remote moon of Jupiter. So how many other films have Io as their center of action? Absolutely excellent in combining the effects that were available at the time with a darn good plot. Well overshadowed by the likes of Alien, this is late 70's/ early 80's sci-fi at it's best. No more is the future in space a Utopia, it is a grimy, nasty everyday world where people carry on their sordid business as they ever did. Except there is always a hero; a flawed hero, as is Connery. A personal crusade, a battle almost against the odds (but not unbelievably so, at all) and the true hallmark of a good sci-fi story: That is, the story would work just as well anywhere, any place, any time, as it does in space in the future. What more do you want (Just check out the shuttle landing)? Essential viewing!

One of the best, if not the only, space opera thriller ever, directed by a very sci-fi oriented film director Peter Hyams, remember him with the terrific CAPRICORNE ONE and the lesser 2010, plus several films made decades later: STAY TUNED, END OF DAYS, A SOUND OF THUNDER.... Plus many films with nothing to do with science fiction, thrillers for most of them. So here, Sean Connery is excellent in the marshall role for this HIGH NOON in outer space. Very well done, very exciting. That's one of the best of the director, besides CAPRICORNE ONE, before he loses most of his ambition with the likes of JCVD for instance.