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The fantasy genre has seen something of a renaissance in the past decade since The Lord Of The Rings came along and tore up the cinema rulebook. Proving that sword ’n’ sorcery was not just for video game and book nerds, many films have tried to replicate the success achieved by the landmark trilogy.
Some have succeeded and become outstanding films in their own right, but many have fallen by the wayside due to being forgettable and generic. Sadly, Vikingdom will almost certainly fall under the latter.
The plot is a familiar one. The god Thor (Stevens), far removed from his cocky and cool Marvel counterpart is incensed at the increasing influence of Christianity and the subsequent exodus of worshippers to another religion.
He assembles a vast army to destroy Christian villages and take control of three important artefacts: his signature hammer from Valhalla, Mary Magdalene’s necklace from Midgard, and the magical Horn of Helheim before a once-in-a-millennia event called the Blood Eclipse occurs.
Eirick (Purcell), a former king who was defeated and brought back to life by a goddess he was in love with, is tasked by the other Norse gods to stop Thor. And so he joins forces with two mighty warriors named Sven (Fairbrass) and Yang (Foo) and assembles a ragtag army of his own to overcome Thor and save humanity.
The story as a whole is pretty uninspiring. Sure, there’s definitely a few decent twists, but the age-old ‘hero goes on an adventure and overcomes increasingly difficult obstacles shtick gets tiring fast.
Vikingdom is essentially one giant series of violent medieval battle scenes with below-average special effects. Many times during the film I was drawn away from the events on screen due to jarring inconsistencies in the special effects.
300 showed how to do computer-generated graphics properly, and although this film has, no doubt, a much smaller budget to work with, that doesn’t excuse warriors vanishing off-screen mid-battle, horribly-proportioned horses, and most hilariously, a dragon with a head and legs but no body. I’m not sure how much a dragon’s body costs in modern film, but surely the budget could have at least allowed for some papier-mâché?
The colour palette that stretches from grey to black with the odd splash of claret does little to gloss over the errors and dullness of the scenery either.
The costuming is even worse; a 10-minute period drama on the History Channel puts more effort in. Cloaks and armour hang off the actors like parents buying their kids’ school uniform two sizes too big in the hope that they’ll grow into them during the year.
Wigs are hilariously bad too and look like they’ve been bought from the 1970s Glam Metal section of the local fancy dress shop. It’s impossible to take battles seriously when it looks like two armies of Europe tribute acts are going at it hammer and tong.
In the rare instances the film takes a breather from blood and guts for some exposition, acting that requires any kind of nuance and emotion is universally bad. The two leads are as wooden as the longboats they sail in; good for a grunt or a fierce look in battle but little else.
The abysmal dialogue doesn’t help either. At worst, it frequently resorts to fantasy self-parody. For example, Stonehenge is inexplicably referred to as ‘The Henge of Stone’ at one point. It’s almost as pointless as the obviously plastic weaponry the warriors use.
The film isn’t all bad if you go in with low expectations, though. If you want cool battle scenes, there are some nifty set pieces if you can see past the green screen. Fans of violence will enjoy seeing warriors losing limbs, eyeballs and more, while some of the camerawork excels with frenetic editing conveying the feeling of battle.
Overall though, the shoddy special effects, atrocious acting and dreadful dialogue makes this a difficult movie to recommend.
Your Ramadan evenings would be much better spent tucked up on the couch with other available historical fantasy drama such as Game of Thrones, the slightly less-famous but still brilliant Vikings, or that twenty-third rewatch of The Lord Of The Rings.
This is one to avoid.
