Like Malick on an acid trip. A bad trip.

Blood. Mist. Rain. Shit. Tears. Rinse. Repeat. Valhalla Rising, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson), is an art-house Viking "epic." The protagonist is a silent, Clint Eastwood-esque slave with one eye (played by Casino Royale's Mads Mikkelsen). He is known as, wait for it, One Eye. Presented in six parts (with titles such as "Wrath" and "The Sacrifice"), the film follows One Eye as he fights for his master, then escapes, then joins a group of barbaric Christians, and then, in a strange twist, finds himself in North America (a wrong turn in the mist!). The graphic novel style recalls 300, even though it's clear the director was inspired by the films of Herzog (Aguirre, the Wrath of God) and Malick (The New World). The pace is slow, with long (long) shots of One Eye and other characters brooding and staring into the distance. There are also brief, brutal moments of action--in One Eye's presence, no throat is unrippable and no skull uncrushable. One Eye also has crimson-red-tinted hallucinations/visions--psychedelic flourishes. To be honest, I felt removed from Valhalla Rising as an "intellectual" experience. I suspect Refn wants us to ponder after the movie the ends, but I'm not sure what he wants us to ponder--how religion can be destructive? How men, in extreme circumstances, can become animalistic? I hope it won't be on the test. The film is far more successful as a cinematic experience. Mikkelsen, who never utters a single line of dialogue, has a magnetic screen presence. Dude's a badass. And the film is well-crafted, overflowing with majestic images. Refn the stylist is in top form, even if Refn the masculine philosopher seems a bit uninspired. The electric guitar-heavy score is also effective.

B

Worst film ever.

It's a beauty to look at and the violence and non-dialogue aspects of the film work well. However, the actual scripted story isn't quite all there and we're left with just an average adventure in the end.

this thing barely has a script, of course it's not quite all there

i came back for you, mags

It's actually horrible to look at. It looks like a student/amateur movie; the only difference being that the boy who filmed it got some expensive software from his rich father during post production and then applied several effects and, particularly, color filters to his meagre material, trying to polish it and to make it look professional. When the vikings got on the boat and went on their voyage across the misty waters, I thought I was watching some local Viking Metal band members in a smoky pub.

It's a pretty lame movie. I'll try and dig out my review.