Rating: 
Summary: Futuristic, shoot out at the OK Corral
Review: I specifically watched this movie to analyze its special effects and props as viewed from 1999. It is interesting to note how trapped movie makers are by the current state of technology. The interaction by Sean Connery with the computer and the lighted display of the impending arrival of the shuttle were typical of computer technology as of 1980. It is interesting to see how much more "user friendly" computers are today. I like to view these "futuristic" movies and reflect on how close to reality they are. At our present pace, it does not appear that we will be mining Io by the year indicated in the movie. As an aside, quickly review the movie "2001" and note how unlikely it is that we will be enjoying space travel to the moon by that date; what a shame.
Rating:
Summary: High noon, yes. Other aspects rarely covered are there too.
Review: I spent a year on a Pacific island. This movie more than any other gave the same feelings of isloation and boredom of workers in a trapped environment. It was a good job of gritty reality under probable circumstances. You'd have to do it.
Rating: 
Summary: DVD transfer bad, Movie is GREAT
Review: I suspect the same reviewers who hate this movie would also dislike "Andromeda Strain" and "The Abyss" Some folks seem to think "science fiction" equates with "action" If you like intelligent, hard scifi for it's glimpse into a realistic possible alternate history then this movie (and the above mentioned) are for you. PS - only get the director's cut of Abyss, the one with the restored subplot which makes the movie make sense. So what if Outlands story "has been done" or reminds you of "High Noon"?? How many times can a story be rehashed in the same format? "Drug runners vs the law" has been done countless countless countless times set in "real world" settings; it's refreshing and original to see it in a futuristic setting. Also refreshing, the future not as a grand adventure but rather as just life as we know it, only with a few more gadgets and a couple of space stations ; ) Very very cool movie, bad DVD transfer notwithstanding. One more counterquip: sure some FX scenes are obviously using miniatures, but I could pose a similar criticism to most modern FX where they are "obviously using CG" - one is not necessarily worse than the other; they are simply obviously fake. I look forward to the day when CG is so darn good that you really can't tell. (Episode 1 comes close in a few landscape shots, though fails at showing living creatures, except for the giant fishies).
Rating: 
Summary: Slow, Slow, Slow
Review: I wanted to like this movie so much. I love Sean Connery. I love outer space epics. I love lone man against hired guns movies. I hated this movie. I couldn't believe how phenomenally slow this movie was. The dialogue was just very mundane. I can't remember a single scene that stands out as good. It almost felt like you were watching a small group of really dumb people trying to think of something to say about a topic they neither knew or cared about every time two people ended up speaking to one another. The big finale' with the mercenaries showing up to kill the sheriff was just a non-event. Can't people think of cool ways to kill bad guys in the future? Nothing in this movie clicked for me, and I really tried to let it work. If I was given this DVD, I'd never even unwrap it.
Rating: 
Summary: Why Must Warner Brothers make cheap DVDs?
Review: If you can get past the fact that this DVD was taken from an old film print of Outland, and thus the picture and sound qualiy are not as good as they should be, then you can treat yourself to an early under-rated gem of a film from director Peter Hyams where the performances of Sean Connery and Frances Sternhagen pretty much carry the story of a Marshall on a distant mining colony who must stop the CEO of the company from using a highly toxic drug that causes the miners to work faster...but also causes their deaths in a short time. Somewhat needlessly gory in some scenes, but it's not over the top. Warner Brothers really need to make better DVDs then this.
Rating:
Summary: Forgotten classic
Review: Io, one of Jupiter's moons, is probably as close to hell as the denizens of "Outland" will ever get. Paid exorbitant sums to toil in indescribable conditions in Io's mines, the miner's need only a few months of their yearlong hitch to decide that they were fools to ever leave Earth. US Marshals keep the peace, but nobody doubts that Io belongs to the mining combine - "Con-Am" (the same name used for the fictitious designer of the fatally flawed spacecraft in Hyams' earlier "Capricorn One".) When bonus checks and prostitutes aren't enough to keep the miners happy, Con-Am's slippery manager (Peter Boyle) turns to illegal drugs. The miners' suddenly work harder and boost production. They also start killing each other and themselves. One man cuts open his spacesuit convinced its full of spiders. Another walks into an airlock without his spacesuit. Director Peter Hyams so superlatively and convincingly creates the compartmentalized and pressurized hell of Io's colony, that it's hard not to imagine the whole thing teetering on the edge of explosive decompression. When the rhiteous marshall (Sean Connery) decides to take Con-Am alone, even those who've never heard of "High Noon" may feel some deja vu. Still, the duel of wits (and bullets) between Connery's marshall and the hired killers brought to get him out of the way creates enough tension to make up for that.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Sci-Fi
Review: It really doesn't get enough credit. This is a wonderful science fiction movie!Start's off slow, but is a great film. Sean Connery is a great actor in this. This movie has a little bit of everything:Sci-Fi,Drama,Action,Adv., ect. It's about an officer who goes on a one-year tour of a mining facility on IO, one of Jupiter's moons. He is there to keep the law, even if people(even other cops) don't want him to. Which leads to more challenges..... Definatly worth the buy.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best SF movies you haven't seen
Review: It's not quite one of the all-time greats, but it's not a 'B movie' either. It's a well-constructed, well-acted drama that doesn't aim _too_ high but does hit what it aims at. See, out on Io (a moon of Jupiter), there's a titanium mining operation owned by some interplanetary mega-corporation. Federal Marshal William O'Niel (that's how it's spelled) gets assigned there and starts to investigate a series of odd deaths that don't seem to be murders but don't pass the smell test all the same. Getting almost no support from the mining station's personnel, O'Niel is on his own in uncovering the unpleasant truth behind the deaths. I won't tell you any more than that; what follows contains no spoilers. The mind behind _Outland_ is Peter Hyams, who later brought us the excellent _Timecop_. But the movie benefits also from a wonderful ensemble cast. Sean Connery is, well, Sean Connery; he's worth watching as Bill O'Niel or as anybody else. Frances Sternhagen is delightful as the crusty and somewhat scatterbrained Dr. Lazarus (not the one from _GalaxyQuest_; she's an M.D. at the mining station). There are also the ever-reliable Peter Boyle and James B. Sikking, and a handful of other well-cast and competent supporting players. Since so much of the 'action' is dialogue and character interplay, it would have failed miserably with a lesser cast; here, it succeeds very well. The special effects are pretty good too, particularly for 1981. The whole thing looks pretty dark and gritty, which wasn't the standard in 1981 but works much better today. At any rate, the mining colony looks right and not at all dated. (However, longtime SF geeks, of whom I am one, will have no trouble finding things to complain about, beginning with the inconsistent gravitational forces.) The one real problem is that the plot stops developing before the movie is over. Once the reason behind the mysterious deaths is revealed, nothing further is uncovered; the plot settles into a simple _High Noon_ resolution that doesn't really take us anywhere new. The DVD has other problems, too; as other reviewers have noted, the transfer to digital format isn't very good. It's watchable, but it's not crisp and clean and the sound occasionally gets muffled. (That's especially too bad with respect to Jerry Goldsmith's wonderfully dark and brooding score, which is brilliant in its own right as well as a perfect match with the movie.) Still, it's well worth seeing and even owning. It's not as ambitious even as some of the other films of the early 1980s. But it's held up better than most of them.
Rating:
Summary: Out of this world role for Connery looks good on DVD
Review: Not that often you see 007 running rampant with a shotgun on IO. I can't say about the VHS version of the movie, another fellow critic has said the VHS version is better video-wise. But I personally like the DVD transfer, though it is subject to some shimmers especially when the scene is comprised of various light/dark elements. If you're on-the-fence about investing in the DVD version, mine came with both Widescreen and Normal and looks clean.
Rating:
Summary: Not just for the Sci-fan buffs and Sean Connery fans
Review: Okay, I've heard this film called uneven, poorly paced, and a slow retread of 100 different westerns that got by on the basics of the plot. I've seen [people] praise the film for its supposed ties to the Alien franchise. I've read the reviews from the die hard Sean Connery fans talking about how great he is in it, and offering that opinion up like his performance is the only saving grace of this film.... This is a good picture all on its own. The pacing is excellent, the atmosphere created is tangible, and the setting is interesting and engaging. The cast delivered here in a big way, and not just on Sean Connery's part. Yeah, he is gives a good performance here, but I personally felt that the rest of the cast outshined him at moments and stole some key scenes. I particularly enjoyed Frances Sternhagen as the company doctor here. She begins with a character that is presented as fairly two dimensional and fleshed it out with her own flairs. Peter Boyle is also noteworthy here. This is a far cry from the dancing Frankenstein's monster in Young Frankenstein, and still further from his current primeime sitcom drivel. The downside I will concede here is that people who enter into the film with a notion that this is an action flick are going to go away dissapointed, particularly those jaded by the last few years of 'summer blockbusters' that favored MTV style direction and Matrix level special effects over content and film making. If that's what you want, I heard Swordfish is a nice DVD to own. Leave this one to people who appreciate film as a story telling medium, and I think that this may well become a rediscovered treasure in the DVD collections of many. -B.
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