Walhalla

It's great to see a feature length animated movie that doesn't completely succumb to the Disney way of doing things. Plus, it has a killer score.

From looking at the other reviews, it seems like a lot of people saw this as children and fell in love with it, and are still looking at it through that lens. Well, I read the comics as a kid and loved them, and still love them as an adult, but having just seen the movie I was really disappointed. This movie has barely any plot to it (whetever plot there is could have been told in about 15 minutes) and it spends a lot of time on ultimately meaningless fooling around. Now, you can expect a few dancing and singing scenes and playing around in an animation, but if that's what the bulk of the movie consists of and nothing really happens, then it's ultimately very uninteresting, I have to say. Very little of the wit and the nicely-packed adventures of the original comics are to be found here--if they'd just decided to pick one of the earlier albums and dramatise that, this would've been much interesting. It really doesn't help that they decided to include the Quark, who is mostly an incredibly annoying little git who makes everyone's life miserable, yet we are somehow supposed to feel sympathy for him. And unfortunately, the Quark's story is the only really character-oriented bit in the movie. Parts of the movie illustrate the old Norse myths wonderfully and the backgrounds are beautifully painted, but overall there's just not that much meat to it. In a movie about Norse myths, I would've enjoyed seeing more mythical adventures instead of 20-minute sequences of kids building tree houses and clapping their hands, or endless excruciatingly frustrating sequences of the Quark breaking stuff and being annoying. I would've wanted to see more of Thor, Loki and Odin because the nature of the gods was pretty close to what it was in the myths and the comics, but instead I just got a baby troll whose neck I wanted to wring. I'm really surprised that such witty and entertaining comics (with fun and exciting versions of the old myths) could result in such a frustrating and boring movie. It's a great shame, because there was certainly a lot of potential.

Highly recommended for those interested in Nordic mythology properly presented to a wider audience.

What a wonderful find, came here after following the cue on Myrkur's song "Jeg er Guden, I er Tjenerne".

And as opposed to what the bad reviews say I have not seen this movie as a child (this is the first time ever) and I am not Danish either (unfortunately, although it is great for learning, look for versions with English subtitles).

Those that gave a bad review to this are just expecting a Hollywood expendable series of Marvel/Thor/Avengers movie nonsense with endless special effects, action faster than any human eye can follow, no plot and the all too commonplace political correctness extremism (read witch hunt) of our dumbified herd society.

Have fun watching this movie with the perspective of going on an adventure as an adult or as a child (or both).

I can't understand how one could be praising such a typical animation as this one.

Music and effects are basic stuff for most parts and they don't deserve any kind of special remark. There is absolutely no positively unconventional or surprising element in the score. It might as well have been ripped from Disney or some forgotten television animation series. At the end of the movie the music shifts into a horrible pop rock song musical which made my stomach turn.

Characters are conventional animation characters portrayed without any authentic personality. There is absolutely no respect in "Thor" who is supposed to be a though guy, so it doesn't matter so much that he is also a loser who can't do anything right. His sidekick "Loki" has to act as Thor's brains even though he isn't too bright himself. So it is a good break that this couple gets bunch of kids to help them out in their difficult quest of beating up a group of giants in a game of intelligence. In the meanwhile these kids go look "Odin" playing chess and also a big part of the movie is dedicated for these kids playing in a tree house.

Real family values are taught by only briefly exposing Thor's wife while she takes care of Thor's children and cooks stew (god's wife thus gives a good example to mortal children about the role of women in the house). I'm also worried about sexual values in this movie: there are no beautiful ladies or knights in this fairytale, only kids, muscle men and badly animated troll giants. So if one likes to see the great gods of Valhalla perverted into a bunch of wimps playing around with mortal (and immortal) children this is the movie to see.

I gave this 2/10 because at the end of the movie there is a two second shot of a chicken waving it's rear sphincter (I'm not kidding) at the camera. I considered this to be a relatively original idea of making the audience feel like they have been screwed.

"Valhalla" has become a bit of a Danish classic, for years rating as a key product of Danish children's fiction. Since it was based on a popular Danish comic album series and helped establish a growing cartoon industry in Denmark, it has also achieved some popularity with young film aficionados, resulting for instance in the recent petition campaign for the DVD release of the film.

Having re-watched the film on the video release recently, I have almost exclusively positive remarks for the film. In all parts of the production this is solid work. There is, perhaps, more cuteness than true drama, and the film is left too short to be epic, but these are descriptions rather than criticisms.

Three things struck me as particularly note-worthy about the production: First, the story does well to transport the imagination of the beholder into the world of the old mythology. To that end, I took special note of the opening prologue scene in which a narrator introduces us to the land of the gods and the story that is to begin; it is almost perfectly styled. Second, as a very positive quality to the story in general, the gods of the story are portrayed funnily and full of flaws, bad tempers, etc. Third, the music of the entire film is excellent, balancing the dramatic and light styles elegantly to fit the moods of the film.