Critic Reviews

Christensen manages his fairly dimensional antihero role with physical and emotional aplomb, but onetime A-lister Cage looks and sounds too silly to take seriously. Worry not, fans of Cage's over-the-top stylings: Scenery is reliably chewed.

Ultimately the ham-fisted Outcast shares less in common with Eastwood’s "American Sniper" than it does with his "Unforgiven" from 1992 and that western’s regretful killers.

Cage, adopting an accent that could best be defined as Just British Enough to Sound Serious, adds some welcome weirdness to this otherwise generic production. He doesn’t fit in at all, but then again, who’d want him to?

At least Outcast’s rustic sets and costumes look lived-in and real.

Outcast is what happens when stunt men direct. The fights are marvelously choreographed, the swordplay splendid and the bloody body count high in director Nicholas Powell’s Middle East/Far East quest tale. The script? Derivative, dim and dull. The performances? Not much, either.

The barnacle-encrusted plot...is dumbed down to the studs.

Aside from providing an object lesson in how Chinese film financing forces some rather remarkable storyline convolutions into generic international action pictures, Outcast provides nothing of interest.