Northmen: A Viking Saga

running. fights. vikings. and a last scene who impose a prequel. not surprising but decent and this could be a real good point. because it respects expectations of its public. an action film in clothes of history. inspired but the series Vikings. using, in not bad manner, a lot of clichés. remembering Lord of Ring in few scenes. and being an interesting try to propose not a new story but a decent exercise to tell it. all is well known. but the desire to be more than one of many action movies , proposing a story of survive, friendship and crumbs of faiths is a nice option. and the acting, far to be impressive, is not real bad. in essence, a correct cake respecting , in each detail, the recipes of genre. and the flavor of fairy tale, and the references to Odyssey are virtues for a film about vikings and theirs adventures in foreign land. only strange fact - maybe the title . but the new parts of a possible trilogy could save appearances.

During a storm, a Viking vessel sinks and the survivors are stranded on the coast of Scotland. They climb a cliff and are attacked by an army; however they defeat the enemy but one of them escapes. They find a noble woman, Inghean (Charlie Murphy), and the leader of the Vikings Asbjorn (Tom Hopper) decides to keep her to get a ransom to go to the Viking settlement Danelagh. They stumble with the Christian monk Conall (Ryan Kwanten) that helps them. Meanwhile the escapee reaches his kingdom and the king sends a group of cruel mercenaries under the command of Hjorr (Ed Skrein) and his henchman Bovarr (Anatole Taubman) to hunt the Vikings down. But Hjorr and Bovarr actually intend to kill Inghean and when they reach the Vikings, Inghean learns the true intention of Hjorr and feels that her only chance to survive is to team up with Asbjorn and his warriors.

"Northmen - A Viking Saga" is a highly entertaining adventure, with a full of action story, charismatic characters and great villains. The direction is tight, the cast has good performance and the fight choreography, locations, costumes, and special effects are excellent. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Northmen - A Viking Saga"

Sometimes the simple things seem to be the most difficult. Like finding your way back home. Then again, even with all the transportation possibilities today some have issues reaching their goal, let alone back when this movie is supposedly playing. It's a decent effort into the viking territory and it has the flair of movies from the 80s, when a group/handful of guys were trying to reach a destination or just try to stay alive.

The effects are good, the camera is nice (copying the middle land moves we've learned to love from Peter Jackson, relishing on sights and so forth), the acting is OK too, considering the genre this is playing at and all the clichés involved. It won't be hard to guess what will be coming up most of the time, mixing a lot of known and working formulas, this is a pleasant time waster ...

Excellent cinematography and great cast elevate this well above the usual fair. The performances are strong throughout and Tom Hopper is a great leading man in the style of Chris Hemsworth. Overall a very good adventure movie directed with great flair by Claudio Fah. Looks like a much bigger budget than it was. Fight scenes handled with confidence. The production values were consistently high class, with notable scenes in forests, caves and swamps all looking suitably authentic and not remotely TV standard like so many other things. Comparisons to the TV show seem unfair as this stands on its own merits as a story. The TV show often feels padded and stretched whereas this moves at a good pace and doesn't outstay its welcome.

Much better than I expected. I went it prepared for a low budget, made-for-TV film. But no, this is a very well made film.

We follow the tale of a band of exiled Vikings as they are pursued across Scotland by a mercenary war band.

Good writing, good acting, memorable characters and good visual effects. It also benefits from excellent fight choreography, great costumes, wonderful mountainous scenery and lots of well-done gritty battles. If you love medieval adventure, definitely give this one a try.

My only complaint for this movie was that the size of the pursuing mercenary warband kept changing. It was hard to tell if they were 8 or 80. This was particularly noticeable at the battle at the bridge. Perhaps it was a vanguard force ahead of a main force, but the director should have made that more clear.

In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. This movie was very similar to the Clive Owen King Arthur movie. Similar style and tone and characters. If you enjoyed that film, you'll probably like this one.