Outland suffered from comparison to Alien and the old classic western High Noon. All that suffering aside, I agree with that. Director Peter Hyams is not a particularly original director, in terms of cinematic breakthrough, but here he had done a decent job, also thanks to his ability to draw some decent performance from his cast and crew.

Comparison to both films are inevitable. The plot is borrowed heavily from High Noon. Here, instead of a sherrif, its a Marshall is the loner who takes on a couple of hit men, without any help from the town folks. Instead of a western frontier, here we are in the future, on Jupiter moon called IO (eye-oh) on a mining town run by the Company.

O'Neill is called upon as there are incidents involving a series of death, somehow related. O'Neil finds out that these are caused side-effects of a certain drug, supplied by Company to its workers to increase productivity. Death plays game with their minds as someone remarks (taken from IMDB), "Some cupcake named "Cane" decided that he didn't need an environment suit. They're still sponging him off the elevator walls."

 Naturally, frictions occur between O'Neil and the Company, headed by Shepherd, played by Peter Boyle. Even after the first meeting with Shepherd, O'Neil remarks to his aide, "He'sh an arshehole."

Shepherd later hires a few hit men, who was to arrive in seventy two hours. O'Neil receives only one corporation, the sweet but cranky doctor

Of recent, I have read an interview with the current action star, Vin Diesel, where he mentioned that current action heroes are flawed lot. Sorry to say this, Vin, but flawed heroes existed a long time ago. Just that, nobody marketed it the way they do now. Then, they marketed the movie as it should be seen (not all). Trailers promises complexity of plot, action and perhaps an attractive thing (or person) or two in the movie.

Today's actors, from that guy playing James Bond to small fries, are talking about contemporary heroes who got weaknesses. If so, they have not watched Cagney, E.G Robinson, Bogart, or even worse, Eastwood and Connery. The latter is in his finest form here, completely divorced from his Bond persona, playing a Marshall, whose wife left him because he can never be a perfect husband and father.

As to the comparison to Alien, it is clearly evident that the production design is inspired from the movie. The atmosphere, and deliberate slow pacing also evokes the feeling one gets from watching Alien. The only thing is, the bad guys are not aliens; they are humans themselves.

I have a few complaints though. Firstly, you don't exactly fear the hit men send to kill O'Neil. In High Noon, you don't get to see them much, but, like Jaws, the fear factor is always there in form or reactions or non-reactions from the surrounding and supporting characters. That is missing slightly in this film. Somehow, with prior knowledge of Connery's macho image, you are more relaxed and confident that Connery will kick butts. Not particularly effective for a thriller.

Most of the final confrontation between Connery and the bad guys are done while they are in full astronautic suit. This, as one critic suggested, robbed the actors off their performance. Too bad. The pace is slow. It is okay to depend on good performance out of its lead, but out of space thriller like this needs a good pacing. Its okay for Connery fans for me, since it takes quieter moments to appreciate his performance, but fans of that time (1981) have already experienced Star Wars and its first sequel. I don't know. I can blame Peter Hyams, who also directed the lack luster The Presidio , also with Connery several years later.

Other than that, Outland works well as a swell sci-fi flick. Just don't associate it with any other thrillers. It just does not fit in.