Outcast

In his directorial debut, Nicholas Powell produces a badly filmed "Chinese" historical and fictional epic starring the unredeemable Nicolas Cage and the forgotten Hayden Christensen. The action is choppy and fast, and some shots are just strange and interrupt any flow. Despite being marketed as a Nicolas Cage film, it is anything but. He's pretty much a supporting role; appearing for the first five minutes or so and then only in flashbacks until the final third where the film reintroduces him as a snake man with a weird voice (or officially as "White Ghost"). But this is a Hayden vehicle, so don't be fooled by the cover. However, Cage does his eccentric Cage-laugh, so that is at least enjoyable, but it is a struggle to get through the awful acting on display (is he attempting an English accent?). The script is so bad and the story has been done more times than Jenna Jameson (the begrudging hero transports precious cargo and grows to love them along the way).

The whole film is just a waste of time. I mean, the Chinese cast (this was actually filmed in China, too) all speak English. There's no attention to detail at all. There is one scene where Hayden teaches a Chinese prince to use a bow and arrow, and says "fire" when he wants him to release it. It's this lack of care that highlights just the worst type of screenwriting that gets green-lit in today's world. I mean, surely "fire" wasn't used until guns came into play. Though among the films many unexciting and quite frankly boring sword fights, there are some scenes of interest. One of the films stand out LOL moments is when Hayden full-on punches an Indian princess in the face, and in another scene when he gets urinated on. He isn't blessed with acting skills, and in one scene where the Chinese princess (played by the serene and beautiful Yifei Liu) puts his opium stash into the fire, he screams "Oi needed dat!", which highlights it perfectly.

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