El hombre del norte

Can't really recommend it unless you either love the main actor and/or Viking movies. Even then I actually like both, but am still disappointed overall mostly due to the script

Its full of irrelevant filler, the right move was to make it shorter as it runs a lot longer than it needed too so does drag on. The plot has some really dumb "moves" in it, which can make it a little frustrating to watch. I could go on but you get the idea, Producer and Director are probably somewhat to blame too, but overall the Directing was good other than not trying to tighten this up more

On the brighter side Acting is good, there is some action and it is a revenge movie, though not an original one by any stretch.

I hadn't realized this film was directed by Robert Eggers, else I would've been better prepared. It's not what I expected, and it was hard to really get into.

That said, I can appreciate the film for its art. I would say it's a gem for cinephiles. It's like viewing the imagination of a medieval Viking peasant as he listens to a bard tell the tale of Amleth.

Great for what it is, but does not evoke emotional connection to the characters, and therefore feels less satisfying.

If you expect a Gladiator type movie with the depth it comes with, you will be have a disappointing experience, like my wife who rated it a 1/5.

If you expect a gory viking slaughterfest with mythical elements, you will be very happy like me and rate it higher. I honestly did not know what I was in for which made me glad I watched it.

I guess it helps if you like violent gory movies. I suspect my wife only wanted to see a trimmed Alexander without his shirt on and she got that, even though he was mostly covered in guts and blood =)

Some fight scenes are exceptionally nice shot without cuts which makes me wonder if they really did shoot it in one take or used movie trickery. I don't really care as it was impressive.

Did it leave a lasting impression? No, not really. Well worth the movie ticket for me in any case.

But yeah. Not much depth to it IMO.

The first thirty minutes are extremely bad. Terrible acting, in particular the son. Even Nicole Kidman is bad. I do not know how anyone keeps watching after that awful start. The hero dad survives everything of course and keeps on giving marvellous speeches. The savages rape and pillage the village, but our hero is troubled by it, but does not do anything to stop it. Yawn. Now give us some more dramatic score and a witch with a terrible accent to make up for it, maybe? The accents kill me. Did they speak English with an accent back then - I did not know. OMG I really did not last more than 40 minutes. Not sure how many bots were needed to push this up to 7 on imdb. Avoid at all cost.

The cinematography is fantastic and the soundtrack is powerful, though almost too much at times. But the plot is too simplistic which makes the runtime ridiculously overlong. The acting isn't terrible, but the dialogue is atrocious, wooden, and mechanically delivered. It would have served the film better had it been done in native languages (Russian, Slavic, Icelandic, Norwegian, Scandinavian...), but doing it in English gave it the feel of early Gaul. I liked the Tibetan-Bon singing in the film, but it didn't fit the setting at all, since that is Russian-Tibetan, not Icelandic-based. I think Eggers tried to be too expansive with his period-appropriateness. The film dragged a lot as it lacked any intriguing subplots or mysteriousness. As an action film, it was only so-so, since the action scenes lacked action, and Amleth too often looked as if he was flexing for photo ops and not actually fighting or killing. Too many dream sequences that just felt glommed on to the thin story. Sadly, an easy film to let run in the background until the revenge mayhem towards the end. Cool to see Bjork in a film!