oater

Though burdened by a thin script and a distractingly contemporary look, the picture’s flaws are handily outweighed by the presence of Nicolas Cage in the leading role — shockingly, his first turn in an oater in a 100-plus film career.

This is the slightly silly cowboys-and-Indians setting that situates the movie, a sci-fi oater based on the first book of a YA trilogy by Patrick Ness, who co-wrote the screenplay with Christopher Ford.

Part of the reason all three work so well, and really do feel of a piece, is because they don’t come with any romantic oater baggage.

There was “True Grit,” a traditional oater showcasing an Oscar-winning performance from the Western’s greatest star, John Wayne.

A gunslinger, a bank robber, a prospector, a trapper, a gal in search of a good man all commingle with so many other saddle-worn tropes of the oater genre — the hangin’ tree, the saloon, the wagon train, the stagecoach and the ubiquitous, “Westworld”-style town that populates our collective imagination of the American West — that the film at first feels like a cartoon.