The Medieval China action tale is too short and silly for us to care.
Review by Matt Cummings
The careers of both Actors Hayden Christensen and Nicholas Cage seem to be headed these days in the same direction: down. Destroyed by his experiences in the Star Wars prequels, Christensen is a ship without a rudder, an actor that could have been something, had his choices not been so terribly misguided. For Cage, it's a career first marked by brilliance (Raising Arizona), then incredible mainstream success (The Rock, Con Air), then incredible folly (Ghost Rider, Season of the Witch, etc etc). Therefore it's only fitting that both find themselves in the direct-to-VOD/Blu-ray snoozer Outcast, an unremarkable film with merely decent action by a stunt-man-turned-director.
The Crusades-weary knight Jacob (Christensen) is haunted by his wartime wrongdoings, a victim as much as those he murdered during those wars. Urged by his mentor Gallain (Cage), Jacob decides to flee the barbarism and head to the Far East. Instead of finding peace, he's dragged into a political cauldron by protecting the 14-year-old Zhao (Bill Su Jiahang), who will soon by heir to the Chinese throne. Standing in the boy's way is the murderous older brother, Shing (Andy On). But when Gallain arrives, Jacob must rejoin his mentor - now one-eyed and referred to as "The White Ghost" - to battle Shing and his henchmen and seek redemption for his former war crimes.
Veteran stunt coordinator Nick Powell helms this makes his feature helming debut with standard slow-motion action and largely unimpressive stunts. This isn't the Chad Stahelski/David Leitch John Wick, a film that succeeds not because of its stunts, but of its universe building and performances. Outcast does very little to build its world, relying on its troupe of actors who do very little to keep our attention.
Both Cage and Christensen turn in largely uninspiring performances, capped off with Cage's wanna-be British accent and over-the-top moments that have sadly become part and parcel of his resume. Christensen, for all his efforts, fails to make a case for anyone to take him seriously, sporting an odd mix of Goth makeup and bad hair (same for Cage in the coif department). There's nothing historically accurate here nor little in the way of creativity. The home release provides us with the standard EPX-oh-I-loved-making-this-movie stuff, but its lack of a DTS-HD Master Audio track is absolutely unforgivable. If you want your home release to be taken seriously - and especially for a film as potentially epic as this - you have to piss with the big boys.
Outcast is the kind of film best left to the viewer who's run through their DVR (is there anyone who can claim that?) and might stumble upon it on Netflix's streaming service. It's utterly devoid of spirit, offering a powerful lesson against those who claim that doing anything in Hollywood is better than being out of work.
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