Outcast - L'ultimo templare

This isn't a great film and I think that the low IMDb rating (4,6) is correct. I'm afraid that the explanation lies in the clichéd dialogues and in the naive action scenes (who could find convincing a man who regularly defeats dozens of enemies as if they just didn't exist?) which seemed outdated for the present times.

But this bad outcome is, under many respects, a pity, because the film has a very good cast, great stunting, beautiful scenery, excellent images, a modern editing and its storyline, although not even remotely original, is a honest classical plot for an adventure movie.

Nick Powell is a top stunt coordinator (and that's why the stunting is so good), here at his first experience as a director. I don't know how great his ambitions are but he didn't seem far from making a film that could be much more appreciated by people like me.

This film attracted me with the role of Nicolas Cage, however, he is not the main character and his role in the film is not quite interesting. This film is simply a Chinese movie with some new winds from western crusaders. However, it is meaningless, the makers tried to attract us with this image but they failed to connect the stories, so it becomes boring. I felt like being cheated.

The royal prince was practicing the arrows, but the result is just one hit shot, that's all. The storyline is half done.

Most important thing, the camera is terrible. If you want to watch fierce sword fights, then you will be seriously disappointed because the camera is so narrow like the you are the fighter in the movie, BUT it is shaken strongly so after a few minutes impressive, you will feel terrible.

Why don't they film it with wider view so we can enjoy the whole fighting and landscapes...? I hope they return my ticket money.

Anyways, the characters are good, I can not give them bad rating.

Finally, sorry for my bad English.

I went into this expecting crap, and I guess there are lots of weird things in the film.

For example, it bypasses the language barrier by giving everyone involved the universal translator, and the Chinese characters speak English in distinctly British accents, wtf.

Also, it combines elements of both the Crusades and Chinese Imperial stuff into a single film, which was interesting.

Hayden Christensen punches a woman in the face. I found that funny, considering the nobody made a fit about "violence against women omagazz". Then again, the film does depict lots of women and some children being slaughtered, it probably would've gotten a pg13 for that if the censors got their hands onto it.

The dialog is somewhat cliché, then you also have the white savior cliché in which Nick Cage and Hayden Christensen kick Chinese ass to save Chinese people from other Chinese people, but I'm cool with that. But honestly, the film does in fact fulfill its duty to entertain. There are lots of sword fights, some cool (although anticlimactic) arrow scenes, and a nice supply of blood, but not in a particularly gory way.

The story is somewhat nonsensical, I guess the only defense to that is 'who cares'.

Over all though, it still was kinda FUN, nothing really made me cringe, and the Chinese theme in a non Chinese film is somewhat refreshing. So my final verdict is: 6/10 fun but not particularly memorable.

I want my money back!

No proper connection between the first 10 minutes war of the crusaders and the Chinese war! The crusaders war was intended to fight the Muslim from capturing Jerusalem the holy city!

They are not connected at all! Why someone becomes all of sudden Robin hood and fights a war that it is not his?

How and when the crusaders learned Chinese???????

Nickolas Cage he didn't lead this story, he could have done better job than this!

It could have been better!

Nic Cage to some has lost it. He's not the main attraction here though. Hayden is (hence my summary line) and he is either barely succeeding in that brooding act he's putting on (going through a hard time trying to redeem himself, not entirely of his own free will mind you). Following orders is not always the best way to go.

The story is pretty straight forward, the action scenes are decent, but the cutting/editing of them is very frenzy. You might like that (it creates the illusion of fast and hard hits or blows to the body) or not, depending on your taste. Overall this is not the worst of Nic Cages recent outputs, but it's not an instant classic either