A spaceship crashes into a lake in Norway. Its survivor, a tortured warrior called Kainan, has unwittingly brought an unwelcome visitor with him from his home planet. Our hero tries to seek shelter with the local Viking community who are not very welcoming to strangers in their mist, especially when his auxiliary cargo starts to wreak havoc upon their village.

Queue lots of swashbuckling and 'ooh, err, argh' Viking acting as the collected forces battle the ferocious Moorwen, a blood-thirsty dragon-like creature hell-bent on revenge for the destruction of his planet and the eradication of his species by Kainan and his compatriots.

Howard McCain's Outlander is aimed at the same audience who made Lord of the Rings such a financial success, but it lacks the rich storyline that provided the backbone to the far superior movie. John Hurt's acting talents are wasted as the Viking elder Rothgar and Jim Caviezel (Kainan) grunts, sweats and tries to make sense out of plenty of below par lines.

Admittedly, some of the action sequences are exciting, and the scenery is stunning, but without a gripping plot to keep you going, the whole thing just limps along to an inevitable, and not very rewarding, conclusion. Outlander is released in cinemas from the 24th April 2009.