Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"I'd like a report of all the incidents in the last six months. I'd like it soon, or I might just kick your nasty ass all over this room. That's a marshal joke."

1981 R / Scifi Action Directed by: Peter Hyams Starring: Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen

Tagline

On Jupiter's moon he's the only law.

Summary Capsule

James Bond starts slumming near Jupiter, taking on corruption and questionable scientific "facts" wherever they be.

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Justin's Rating: What are you prepared to do?
Justin's Review: When Outland begins, we the audience are subjected to one of the worst movie narrative devices: endless informative text. Seriously, the whole beginning is pretty much five minutes of slowly revealing text, as if you were being forced to read a Tom Clancy novel at the rate of one sentence per thirty seconds. So if you ever pick this film up — and with a shotgun-toting Sean Connery on the cover, I don't see how you could resist for long — go ahead, fast forward through all this, and let me sum it up for you:

"O'Neil decides instead to get out his great big stick, plop it right down in the mud, and doggedly go after the truth."

It's the FUTURE. Some corporation has plunked down a MINING COLONY on a moon of JUPITER. It's pretty ISOLATED. And SEAN CONNERY is the grooviest sheriff in the whole damn town.

Pretty much the worst job assignment in the solar system, these miners get to deal with super-long work hours and a treacherous environment that threatens to make their bodies swell up and go *pop* if they make a mistake. To our great delight, this happens in the first few minutes, as a miner freaks out about bugs crawling on his skin and opens up his suit to the sinister Vacuum of Space. And yes, let's get past the fact that this one "fact" — used numerous times in the film as a serious message about the technical abilities of the special effects team — is so blatantly untrue as to be laughable (see Intermission! below). To make matters worse, other miners are starting to show similar mental instability, the head of the operations doesn't seem to care much, and the only movies they have in their rinky dink theater are the collected works of Pauly Shore.

Thrown into the middle of this isolated and paranoid situation is O'Neil (Connery), the new federal marshall with a checkered past, a weary wife and a bug up his behind. Expected to go with the flow and ignore the obviously wrong events going on around him, O'Neil decides instead to get out his great big stick, plop it right down in the mud, and doggedly go after the truth. Good for him. We'll be sitting over here, waiting to see how it turns out.

I can't in all honesty say that Outland is a masterpiece, or even a terribly watchable flick. It's slow, for one thing, taking us through a plot and its various "twists" that are easy enough to figure out before you've even gotten out of the Endless Introductory Text Of Doom. Also, for all of the vast conspiracies and evilocity implied in Outland, I truly expected things to get a lot more freaky and bloody and extreme by the end. I forgot; this was 1981, a simpler time. The big finale is about as grandiose as three theater majors hamming it up on stage and hoping for your approval. Big meh.

But still, don't count this out! Sean Connery doesn't want to come to your house and collect your thumbs as retribution for not watching it, but he'll do it if he has to. The single best element Outland has going for it is its awesome atmosphere (and, occasionally, lack of it). The colony itself doesn't look half-bad, for old school "future technology" design. It's definitely on par with the Nostromo from Alien, as is the confined, cramped claustrophobia. To see O'Neil struggle through this world that is completely against him — by the end, even his own officers won't stand with him — reminds us in a good way of Connery's magnificent performance in The Untouchables.

So remember kids, next time you're in space, pack your shotguns and leave your realistic physics at home!

Peter Boyle's just too cute to be a serious villain. Sorry man! Shotguns: outer space's candy "Did I just pee? And did I forget to hook up the plumbing beforehand? Oh, drat."

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• The mining company is referred by the name "Con-Amalgamate". This is the same name given to the company that manufactured the defective life support system mentioned in Capricorn One (also directed by Peter Hyams)
• Several times during the first half hour of the movie, O'Niel's uniform name tag changes spelling from "O'Niel" to "O'Neil" and back again.
• In the opening credits, the word "Principal" is misspelled.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

Nyet.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

So, if you don't mind me asking, what does happen if a human body is exposed to the harsh environment of outer space? First of all, explosive decompression (which would cause the usually-assumed body bursting) would not happen; the atmosphere would only drop from one to zero, which is tolerable (if uncomfortable) by human standards. That's what our skin is there for. Actually, exposure to space is even survivable for up to 30 seconds without permanent physical damage… no blood boiling, and only a slow loss of heat (by radiation only, since there's no atmosphere). However, it wouldn't be pleasant: if a person held their breath, their lungs could rupture (Event Horizon even made a point of mentioning this), and damage could be done to the eardrums and gastric system. Depending on the distance from the sun, there's the very real danger of solar radiation, which could give a severe sunburn within seconds. The biggest danger is asphyxiation, knocking the person out cold within 15 seconds, and dead within two minutes (the crew of Soyuz 11 died from this).

Groovy Quotes

O'Neil: Are you Dr. Lazarus?
Lazarus: Yes. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. That's a doctor joke.

O'Neil: I'd like a report of all the incidents in the last six months. I'd like it soon, or I might just kick your nasty ass all over this room. That's a marshal joke.

Slater: Some cupcake named "Cane" decided that he didn't need an environment suit. They're still sponging him off the elevator walls.

Rudd: You're supposed to protect us. You're the police. It's your job. Where are your men?
O'Neil: My men? My men are s**t.

O'Neil: How deep are you in?
Montone: Not too deep... I'm paid to look the other way.
O'Neil: In other words you don't do anything bad, you just don't do anything good, do you?

Sheppard: If you're looking for money, you're smarter than you look. If you're not, you're a lot dumber.
O'Neil: Then I'm probably a lot dumber.

O'Neil: Are you sure?
Lazarus: I'm *unpleasant*, I'm not stupid. Of course I'm sure. I can count.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Event Horizon
• The Untouchables
• Alien