Outlander

is another of the several movies that the late-night crowd at my house absorbed this past weekend. Somewhat to our surprise, the film was generally enjoyable and a cut above most of the B movies we try.

The cast was part of what made the flick decent. James Caviezel, though never particularly emotive or believably effective, managed to carry off the role well enough that only a few times did we go, "Really? That guy did that?" Sophia Myles did her best to look sexy, fearsome, and feminist, as the wandering script demanded. John Hurt played the grizzled new king with an appropriate level of scene chewing. And so on.

Like so many other movies, however, Outlander suffered from a script that simply couldn't be bothered with internal story logic. From the backstory to the climax, whenever the movie felt the slightest urge to swerve off the logic highway, it went off-road.

I've come to find this phenomenon a bit puzzling. I know what writers will work for. I have a pretty good sense of the budget of these films; most of the data is online. It just wouldn't cost much to invest in a writer (or writers) who could both construct an interesting and exciting plot and deliver a story that didn't force you to turn off all higher cognitive functions before settling into your seat. I also don't believe movie people are stupid or incompetent; they have to be good at what they do, or at least as good as most people in most fields are.

My guess is that the collaborative nature of filmmaking coupled with the need for a lot of things to go BOOM leads to an abandonment of story logic in favor of those more important (to the producers) factors. If that's the case, I think the answer is not to settle but instead to hire better writers--and then to listen to them.

Again, Will Smith, if you're reading this and wondering about collaborating with me, have your people call my people, and we'll do lunch. On you.