Nicolas Cage is probably one of the busier actors working today, with a few movies out almost every year. However, most of them aren't that good, except for Joe which I have not seen but heard rave reviews for.
When I first saw the Outcast trailer, I was making fun of Cage because he was speaking with what seemed to be a British accent at the time. I have never heard him do any accent before and I thought it wasn't a very good one too. I started to imagine how bad this movie was going to be.
But in actual fact, it wasn't as bad as I had feared. And that's largely thanks to the first time director Nick Powell.
Powell has done quite a number of films before as a second unit director. This was his first feature film and I thought he did a commendable job. Especially the action sequences where there were very little choreography, he actually made them looked exciting.
His weaker parts were keeping the script by James Dormer in a smooth flow and pace. Some of the transitions weren't that good and felt a little bit jerky.
But the weakest point of the whole movie was the Asian actors. Most of them were horrible in terms of acting wise. Together with their accents, their acting felt forced and unnatural; especially Liu Yi Fei and the two kids. One of them, Summer Jike, was the weakest link. She seemed to have a perpetual smile on her even in dire situations. Powell did good keeping her out of the camera.
The movie also suffered the same weakness as 47 Ronin, that the characters should have used their mother tongue in the movie; in this case, Chinese. Perhaps the acting wouldn't have been so unnatural and it would have given the movie some authentic feel. My theory is that both movies ran out of budget for a translator and subtitles.
But still, Hayden Christensen's performance here was my favourite from him. He finally got the brooding rebel-slash-hero right! Apart from the Star Wars prequel, I've only seen him a few other times. And I finally saw the actor in him.
Cage reminded me of his role in Kick-Ass; where he turned up onscreen to give that extra burst of life. His onscreen charisma was undeniable. Even pulling his face and going in and out of the accent, he still managed to win me over and pulled me into his performance. I really enjoyed his chemistry with Christensen and I thought that's what made the movie worked a little bit more.
Another Taiwanese Andy On also turned out to be a fearsome antagonist, though his final battle could have elevated the movie a little bit more with some fight choreography.
But even with a weak script, the direction was commendable and the drama created wasn't bad at all. It wasn't great but it wasn't horrible too.
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