Review of Pathfinder (2007) by Colin G — 05 Jan 2011

Pathfinder stars Karl Urban, not Michael 'we will fight in the shade' Fassbender whom I frequently confuse him with. It doesn't help when Urban's Pathfinder (2007) is so similar in both style and theme to Fassbender's 2010 film Centurion.

What do you need to know about Pathfinder? Well the pitch for the film was most likely along the lines of, "Indians versus Vikings. Any questions? No? Good". Urban plays a man of viking descent who was raised by indians and must now fight the vikings to protect the indians from the vikings to prove that he is a viking and an indian at the same time.... or something. It's not very important really. It's as good an excuse as any to pick up a sword and stab seven shades of blood soaked red out of anything that moves.

The version of the film that I watched was the extended cut, which promised more blood and action than the 'edited for theatres' version. It does deliver on it's promise of gore. There are quite a few decapitations, blood splatters and even one particularly nasty eye gauging to keep those of us with a passion for bloodlust going.

The film lasts an hour and forty minutes, which is generally a good running time for a film of this kind. However, Pathfinder does drag somewhat at times. There are a lot of walking scenes, screen time which could better have been used for killing time (literally).

Characters are by the numbers: A hero who is a bit of an outsider who must prove himself to his people. Check. A wise old sage? Check. Token love interest? Check. A guy who starts out as our hero's rival but they come to terms with each other because they turn out to be more alike than they ever knew..... zzzzzzzzzzz..........

Not that characters are all that important in such a movie. What is very important is the action sequences themselves. In this area Pathfinder is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand there is a very cool (pardon the pun) scene where Urban slides down a snowy hill on a makeshift taboggan made from an enemy's while being chased by vikings on sleds. There is also a rather amusing scene where a plan extraordinarily backfires which is probably a lot funnier than it was meant to be. Sadly, the film's final battle scene is a bit of a let down. It had been sign posted from a mile away and had me thinking, "Is that it?". Some of the other action scenes seem to be edited a bit clumsily, with obvious cuts just before effects (gore) shots.

The costumes and sets all look excellent, which is impressive as the film did not cost all that much to make. The look and feel of the movie is effective and it will keep you occupied for the full running time, if not enthralled. As I said earlier, it is a lot like the more recent film Centurion, but not quite as much fun. Pathfinder isn't a bad swords, guts n' glory film by any means, but it doesn't really stand out from the crowd either.