Review of The Northman (2022) by Moviemitch96 — 22 Apr 2022

From director Robert Eggers ('The VVitch', 'The Lighthouse'), this Nordic epic sees a vengeful viking (Alexander Skarsgard) out to find and slay his traitorous uncle who murdered his father (Ethan Hawke) and claimed his mother (Nicole Kidman) years ago in order to seize the throne.

Sounds pretty familiar right? That's probably because a story like that has only been told dozens of times ('Hamlet', 'The Lion King's, you name it!) And unfortunately this rather uninspired story makes it almost entirely predictable and not particularly interesting from start to finish.

Production values and the choreographed fights throughout are undeniably impressive, but they're all loud, obnoxious, bloody, sweaty, etc. Me personally, I've never been a huge fan of sword and sandal epics such as this.

Other films such as this and '300' for example are nothing more than tasteless exercises in flaunting men with chiseled good looks and meathead masculinity as we watch their blood, sweat, and tears, along with kill after kill.

Like I said, it's obnoxious, and I can't stand films like that, and this one is no different. Even the performances I can't say much for, with the only true standout being Skarsgard's fierce and committed performance.

Everybody else is relegated to distracting and corny accents and hammy performances all around. Overall, see it if you must for some stunning production value and cinematography, along with an always reliably solid performance from Skarsgard, but otherwise, it won't really appeal to many others apart from those who are into big, loud, bloody, and stupid muscly men doing their thing (and also finding some time to lay in bed with their Queen while they're at it.