Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, a few other people.
One Eye (Mikkelsen) is a mute warrior who has been held captive by a Nordic tribe. Eventually he escapes with a boy (Stevenson) and they run into a bunch of Christian crusaders, who want to take the name of Jesus to another land and build a new Jerusalem.
Valhalla Rising is one of those films that pretends to be deep and profound but really the only meaning you’ll get from this is what you put into it. It’s only 90 minutes long but it’s excruciatingly slow and there’s barely any dialogue, so most of the film is just people either staring at each other or staring off into the distance. It may make for good symbolism but it doesn’t make for good cinema, and any point the movie thinks it is trying to make is lost in boredom. Mikkelson is pretty good as the protagonist since I’ve associated him with more cerebral characters, but here he is brute force. Some of the action is cool and there are some gruesome scenes. The cinematography is nice and the landscapes are beautiful, albeit bleak.
Films like these annoy me though. I like it when movies have a philosophy message or a deeper subtext that you can try and decipher. I don’t understand why you’d make a movie as slow and plodding as this though. Surely if you wanted to put forward a message you’d want to do so in an entertaining and engaging way to make sure it spreads. Because whatever message Valhalla Rising wants to put forward is not enough to slog through 90 minutes of insufferable staring.
He’s look here. He’s looking there! Oh wow, now he’s looking there!
Give me a break.
Avoid this at all cost.