2009
·93m
Valhalla Rising
Summary
Scandinavia, 1,000 AD. For years, One Eye, a mute warrior of supernatural strength, has been held prisoner by the Norse chieftain Barde. Aided by Are, a boy slave, One Eye slays his captor and together he and Are escape, beginning a journey into the heart of darkness. On their flight, One Eye and Are board a Viking vessel, but the ship is soon engulfed by an endless fog that clears only as the crew sights an unknown land. As the new world reveals its secrets and the Vikings confront their terrible and bloody fate, One Eye discovers his true self.
Reviews
John Chard
June 3, 2014
It never manages to rise above its one trick.
Nicolas Winding Refn directs and Mads Mikkelsen stars in this ponderous exercise in arty veneers. Refn boldly strips back the dialogue and plot to reveal a picture big on ideas but poor in execution. As the story plods along, stopping only briefly for some guttural violence now and then, it becomes evident that the makers have made a painfully boring movie. At first the drained out colour photography looks like a masterstroke of ethereal atmospherics, but this also wears off and only compounds the overall feeling of monotony that pervades the pic.
Hugely disappointing venture from a director capable of so much more. 3/10
