The Northman

Official Australian release date: 21/4/22.
Viewed: 21/4/22.
Director: Robert Eggers
Actors: Alexander Skarsgard, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman
Genre: Action / Drama
Rating: MA

‘The Northman’ is a viking film with a hint of Shakespeare thrown in. It follows the journey of Amleth (Skarsgard), his mother Gudrun (Kidman), his father King Aurvandil (Hawke) and uncle Fjolnir (Bang). Olga (Taylor-Joy) comes along later as the love interest. When the king is killed, Amleth vows to avenge him, setting up the plot. I wish there was more of Hawke & Dafoe, but they have fun with the screentime they get.

Skarsgard’s traps almost outshine some of his acting, with him being extremely buff for this role. The scenery of Iceland (and lots of Ireland standing in for other Nordic regions) looks amazing, but isn’t always used as much as it could be. The score’s OK – lots of guttural chanting and drumming. Trying to be somewhat faithful to the period, being set in ~900AD, there’s plenty of violence and gore, but it’s not incessant and there’s no large battles. Still, some is pretty graphic.

At it’s heart, it’s that age old tale of love or hate – you can only ever really choose one. This is an easy answer for Amleth for most of the film, being driven purely by revenge – until it’s not. I really liked the night scenes when Eggers make it a silver-ish black & white, but I just felt there was something missing to make this a great film.
 
Overall: Good viking revenge action film, if not quite perfect
 
Gav’s Rating: 3 stars.