Outcast (2014)

Hayden Christensen and Nicolas Cage: an unexpected, but delicious pairing, much like vanilla and ham. Today on Movie Russian Roulette, Alex watches what should have been two "great" ice cream flavors tasting great together get soured by too much soy sauce. (Note to self: stop blogging while hungry.)

To quote my notes, "dis gon b gud"

Overview: In a movie should have been impossible to fuck up, Jacob (Hayden "Sandy Anakin" Christensen) and Gallain (Our Lord and Savior Nicolas Cage) are two knights in the Crusades. Gallain has seen this shit before and knows the Crusades aren't godly; meanwhile, Jacob, the younger and more idealistic one, just wants to smite some heretic Muslims. After following them carve their way past some Moors who are portrayed with the appropriate amount of sympathy because 2014, the movie jumps to "CHINA. THREE YEARS LATER."

Yeah, incredulity was about my reaction too. In this new section of movie, China's king (I mean should more probably be Emperor but this movie don't give a fuck) is in ill health. You can tell because the perfectly fit actor coughs every once in a while. And mentions his declining health every other line. Anyway, this king has two sons: the young but altruistic Zhao and the bloodthirsty Shing. Seeing as the king doesn't want a barbarous fuckwit on the throne, he chooses Zhao to succeed him. Take a guess how this turns out for His Majesty.

Not well

 After swiftly ignoring the fact that there were about 10 witnesses in the room, Shing pins his father's murder on the 10-year-old Zhao and sends the army after them. Zhao, desperate and on the run with his sister Qiang, turns to an opium-addicted Jacob for help in making their way to relative safety. Everyone speaks in British accents because of... reasons?

Notable moments/quotes: After the battle in the Crusades, we're treated to blood-splattered Cruaders dragging Muslim women by the hair to no-doubt off-screen rape rooms. Just in case you don't "get" the movie's oh-so-complex moral stance of "killing people makes you bad" by that point.

When the time for regicide is nigh, Shing goes for extra style points by killing the king with a sword that the late queen once used to save the king with. We're told this through exposition even more drawn-out and clunky than the previous sentence.

King, as he dies: "Heaven forgive you."
Shing the Edgelord: "Heaven is closed to me because of all the things I've done for you."

Jacob, after paying for some food and more sweet, sweet opium with his sword, fights a room full of guards with improvised weapons to get it back. The prince and princess, who happen to be there, get held at swordpoint. Then...
Guard captain: "Either way, the boy dies!"
Jacob: "Kill 'im, then. I just want muh sword back."
The captain, swayed by this argument, drops the sword, but...

Jacob gives no fucks

Zhao, to the only person keeping he and his sister alive who has shown himself to be unstable and not entirely trustworthy: "I thought white devils didn't bathe."
Jacob: "A man picks up many bad habits when he's away from home."

Later, the quartet (they pick up a peasant girl along the way for no real reasons who has like 4 lines all movie) enter a town for rest and supplies. Jacob wisely wraps his face up in a turban-thing, but the prince and princess, the ones actually being hunted, just stroll right in without any kind of disguise whatsoever. To the movie's credit, this fucks them over and leads to a dull chase scene.

Roughly an hour into this movie, Gallain reappears as the "White Ghost": an infamous bandit everyone was hunting for their own reasons.

"hey do a death scene five minutes after u get back in the movie"

"thx bro"

Gallain, to Zhao: "How old are you? Ten?"
Zhao, defiantly: "Fourteen!"
Gallain responds with a textbook Cage laugh.

Gallain: "Black Guards are as thick as flies on a farting goat's ass because of you!"

In one scene, Gallain keeps a snake wrapped around his fist for no discernible reason.

Shing, just before he fights Jacob one-on-one for no reason: "You've spilled a lot of blood today. Let's see how much you have left."

As the credits roll, Zhao prepares to rule his kingdom, his still-somehow-alive-after-getting-run-through-with-a-fucking-sword sister at his side, but Jacob just leaves. Yeah, who needs easy money from a grateful monarch for removing all opposition to his rule when he was a kid?

My thoughts:

I assumed this movie would be a fun pairing up of a pretty godawful actor and a good actor who has very, very poor taste in scripts. Instead, it shoved Cage out of the way for around 70 minutes of its 99 minute running time. Am I pissed? You bet I am.

This movie is basically two half-movies shoved together with all the grace of a boycrazy little girl smashing her in WUV Barbie and Ken dolls together. We have the half-baked movie about the Chinese royal family feud, and then the 14% baked movie about two jaded ex-Crusaders looking for a purpose beyond bloodshed. And really, I think that movie would've been cool. That's the godsdamned movie I signed on for: Anakin Skywalker and Cage (hopefully in full Castor Troy mode) wandering the land, fighting crime and... something. I dunno. Basically I just wanted to see two actors who I know can ham it up play off each other. Like Season of the Witch, but less boring. Sadly, what we got was... ergh. It feels like the studio had a scene with these two Crusader characters and a by-the-numbers script for the struggle of an idealistic prince against his EBIL brother, and they shrugged and fusion cuisine'd the two.

Unfortunately, we landed more on the "taco with ketchup" side of things, because this shit? It don't work.

This hour-and-a-half plus movie manages to develop almost none of its characters. At best, we are told about, rather than shown, their attributes. In example, repeated mention is made of how Zhao is "better" than the Crusaders are, because he hasn't fought people. Yet, Zhao is still shown wanting to learn how to fight, and rather than go, "Oh no no we must give him a safe space and protect that innocence" the Crusaders are like "Eh yeah here's how ya kill folks." Top score. Jacob also has a crippling opium addiction that he instantly recovers from off-camera when it's no longer plot-relevant, right after the previous scene spent a good ten minutes just on why opium is a bad thing for bad people. And as previously mentioned, the group picks up a peasant girl who serves literally no purpose in the movie beyond showing again that the young prince is a good guy who does good things and UGHHHHHHHHHHH.

This movie pulled the ol' bait-and-switch on everyone. I mean, Nic Cage is front and center on all the movie posters. Sure, this isn't Plan 9 level of fuckery, but it's pretty close given the day and age. If you list a major-ish star, that star should be a major presence in the movie, you bastards.

behold the entirety of Lugosi's role in that film

Cage also decides to fight for the siblings for basically no reason. Sure, he isn't given much choice, given that the Chinese Army is at the gates, but he even pulls a one-man stand against the enemy army (who politely attack him one at a time for around five minutes until they realize their mistake in a rare showing of mook cunning) when he could have presumably fucked off and left. Indeed, finding Cage's character is given this huge weight; he's treated as this mythical figure for much of the movie, rumored and hinted at, but when we find him he's just a simple man with a snake coiled around his fist trying to make his way in the world. He doesn't have the answers. He doesn't even know the fuckin' questions. He just is. He just... is.

Long story short, this movie was a haphazard mess that didn't even give Hayden enough lines to hang himself with and not enough Cage to help push him to the brink. And that's really all any of us watching this movie wanted, I think. Another nail in the coffin of Christensen's career.

I give this movie a Nic Cage Ponders Fast Food out of five. Encourage me with Nic Cage memes on Facebook and Patreon.