Review of Valhalla Rising (2009) by Archibald T — 22 Mar 2011

In the beginning there was only man and nature. Men came bearing crosses and drove the heathen to the fringes of the Earth. Then boom! The title Valhalla Rising. Not much is explained about the title itself. I think it's only to sound pretty or make you think it'll be interesting. I'll just warn you that it's a slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, slow, movie.

The film is based on six parts. Each one titled: Wrath, Silent Warrior, Men of God, The Holy Land, Hell and lastly The Sacrifice. A man named One Eye is treated badly. He's beaten up a LOT and a young boy brings him food and water. He has dreams of events that will happen to him. Like for example, he dreams of bathing in a pond. Later on, he's bathing in a pond where he stumbles upon an arrow head which helps him escape from his captures.

The young boy who fed him follows him and tags along. They bump into some Christians who are on their way to the Holy Land. One Eye and the young boy join them. As they journey, their boat gets caught in a fog bank which lasts for a long time making those aboard the boat superstitious of One Eye and the young boy.

When it clears, they arrive on land, but it's not Holy. As it turns out they over shot their destination and landed somewhere else. Now the rest of the film just gets duller. Once they arrive they begin to go mad over the fact that there is no food or whatever. It's all very strange incoherent bullshit. It's like watching a macho version of a Sofia Coppola movie except without any feeling what so ever about the characters or the situation they're in. Objectivity is the camera's point of view through out the film and it's so annoying when shots of One Eye are always sideways. It gave me a fucking headache.

What didn't give me a headache though was the use of sound effects and the gorgeous shots of the Scotland landscape. It's very beautiful stuff and I would recommend it for only that alone. The characters are empty headed cardboard cut outs, there is no story to be found and it's hard to care about anything in the film when you can NOT connect with it to understand it better.

Overall, what you get is a film that spends too much time being self-importantly "arty", ominous and just down right dull. (But still the scenery in the film is it's biggest highlight. The rest is hogwash sadly.).