Sean Connery Movie:

		List Price: $14.98		Label: Warner Home Video Salesrank: 13009 Released: December 18, 2007
		Our Price: $3.00
		Used Price: $5.41
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: DVD

Editorial Review:
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 02/28/2008 Run time: 109 minutes Rating: R

Outland Reviews:
Outland DVD
2009-12-20 - An entertaining film with good production, fine acting, and appropriate score by Jerry Goldsmith. Peter Boyle is specially very interesting to watch and listen to. Good quality DVD.

Terrible transfer
2009-12-16 - The 2007 DVD release of "Outland" is one of the worst transfers to DVD I've seen.

I'm not an "A/V geek" who obsesses about his home theater system, has gold plated cables, etc. The problems with this DVD are obvious to even an untrained viewer.

I watched this using a projector, screen, and Dolby 5.1 sound.

The video transfer is inconsistent. Some scenes are acceptable, others are full of obvious encoding artifacts that are distracting to the eye. Some scenes are so bad that look like a bootleg copy.

The audio is another problem. The original film was shot with Sensurround, which was a short-lived audio format designed to provide intense low frequency sounds (rumbling, explosions, etc.).

There's nothing wrong with Sensurround, but it seems that in the transfer to Dolby 5.1, the bare minimum was done. The low frequency sounds are definitely cranked up to eleven, but the rest of the audio sounds like mono. So, the transition between action scenes and regular dialog is jarring.

The 1997 release of "Blade Runner" is famous for being a bad DVD transfer. The 2007 release of "Outland" is much worse, which is astonishing.

This DVD might look/sound ok on a smaller TV with stereo sound. As far as a home theater experience, it's almost unwatchable.

Great Movie, Horrendous Transfer
2009-12-08 - A- For the movie itself. A fine hard-science film in the Alien/Blade Runner traditions
F- For the transfer. It's as if someone recorded it from a TV broadcast on SLP VHS and then transferred it to DVD at the lowest bitrate possible.
My advice? Wait for the studio to fix this inexcusable travesty and then buy the inevitable DVD or BD release

NO GOOD DVD
2009-11-04 - THIS VERSION OF THIS DVD IS NO GOOD, THE PICTURE QUALITY IS HORRIBLE AND IT IS NOT ENHANCED FOR WIDESCREEN TV'S AS IT SAYS IT IS IN THE DVD COVER.

Very Well Crafted Sci-Fi version of 'High Noon'
2009-10-01 - This could have turned out to be another B grade Sci-Fi version of 'High Noon'. But the Writing, Directing, Casting, Acting and just about everything else in this film are all very good. All the characters came off as completely genuine and believable. Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Frances Sternhagen, and the actress who played the station doctor (could not find out who she was) were very nearly perfect.

The plot is as follows: Connery plays the newly arrived federal marshal in charge of law enforcement on one of Jupiter's moons. The moon base is run by a large mining conglomerate under a government franchise, with Peter Boyle playing the general manager. Conditions are harsh, and the general ethos of the place is to work hard, play hard and bank your overtime and hazard pay for your next vacation. Frances Sternhagen as Connery's number two sums up the best features of the place as "the hookers are clean, the booze isn't watered down..."

This particular franchise is the best performing in all of the solar system and everybody is happy -- the workers for the fat paychecks and the managers (especially Boyle) for the much fatter bonuses. There is only one problem, a significant number of the miners are going crazy and committing suicide. At Connery's insistance the "old wreck" of a doctor investigates the matter and discovers that many of the men are using a highly dangerous super-stimulant that induces psychosis with prolonged use. Connery also discovers that along with collecting large bonuses for the work of his drug-made supermen Boyle's character is also involved in the distribution of the drug, and Connery's number two (played perfectly by Sternhagen) and everyone else that matters are being paid to look the other way. The new marshal has the choice of going along to get along or trying put a stop to it and chooses the latter -- initiating an increasingly deadly game with Boyle and his henchmen. There are a few twists and turns which I will not give away here and the predictably violent final showdown.

The reason I gave this DVD five stars is that unlike so many Sci-Fi and/or "action" films in which the characters are little more than cardboard cutouts and the action and special effects are the only reason for watching the movie, the characters in this film are real people with genuine emotions and imperfections. A scene that Connery plays with the doctor in a space-age racketball court in which he explains why he is risking everything for people that don't even give damn is one of the best I have ever scene in a movie of this kind. I am aware that most reviewers of this movie were not overly impressed. I was. Take it for whatever its worth. If you prefer your movies have a bit of heart and usually avoid Sci-Fi and action films for this reason you might want to give this one a try.

DVD quality was not outstanding but I did not find it to be a problem.

Poscript for parents:
If you watch movies with your children you should be aware that the movie includes a scene in which a miner having a psychotic break threatens and injures a nude prostitute with a large knife and also includes a scene in a bar that features 3-D softcore porn. (Softcore in the sense that the men and women are nude and the intercourse obvious but no primary sex organs are actually visible.) With the exception of the scene with the prostitute, the violence in the rest of the movie is typical cops and robbers stuff.