Hammer of the Gods

For whatever reason, I have not given up on the SciFi channel yet but this film comes close to doing it for me. I advise people NOT to waste their time on this. Not only was Zach from Home Improvement hopelessly miscast as a Viking hero but his acting is no better than when he was on the series. There were some moments--unfortunately the moments were badly acted, ripped off from other shows and not very interesting. This was almost an embarrassment to watch. I felt bad for the actors because they didn't have a chance with that badly written script. Fans of SciFi/action will be angered by some of the blatant lines stolen from other shows like Highlander. I thought about skipping this because it looked like it would be bad. I should have trusted my judgement.

This movie is simply awful. Wooden "acting?" lame action scenes, cheap plastic Armor and weapons. What makes it even worse by comparison is "The 13th Warrior" is running at the same time on another channel. The Vampire angle just does not work, at least, in this Viking movie. Indeed the characters themselves as acted do not come across as credible Norsemen. The sword fights look like they where choreographed by a person who learned sword fighting by watching He-Man Master of the Universe cartoons. Zachery Ty Bryan who was to be Thor always looked like a deer staring into a set of headlights at night. Zac' I would suggest better acting classes. Indeed it would be a total waste of hard drive space if you illegally down loaded it off the internet for free. It is not as bad as "Plan 9 From Outer Space", or "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" but not by much. This would be a good movie to show in order to get rid of unwanted company.

Oh… don't you just hate it when the concept reads refreshingly fun (Vikings battling werewolves) but the final product leaves a lot to be desired. Sadly this straight to TV sci-fi original production doesn't complements its idea, instead we get a very low-rent, quite bland and terribly daft (but not in cheesy way) production that simply feels like its going through the motions with little in the way of excitement and conviction. To cement it just listen to the vapidly clunky script and stilted performances (with Zachery Ty Bryan best known for the TV series "Home Improvement" heading the cast)… although the acting to a certain degree can only be as good as the material allows them to be. Instead I rather just watch 1999 Viking actioner "The 13th Warrior" again… at least that entry wasn't gutless.

It does take a while to get going with squabbling dramas and well-worn clichés hitting the fold, as they do go on and on talking / arguing in many meandering passages, before finally breaking out an injection of blood splattering, if clumsily forced combat. Quite little and without the bite though. The CGI is poorly conceived in that unconvincing video game imagery and the make-up effects (or better put masks) fair no better, but definitely more preferable. The way the camera shoots the werewolves is that there are never any clear shots, especially during the choppy action and the one and only transformation scene is lazily done. The hazy locations are well pitched, however they're clearly set-designs during the night sequences and the atmosphere is virtually non-existent.

I found "Hammer of the Gods" to be a drearily forgettable action fare.

Okay just a few quirks for myself here - if you are making a story of the Norse gods don't you think that at least one of the actors would have had a Nordic accent?? And the acting ... well it was good for the dialog, I suppose it could have been worse although I don't know how. I have to wonder if at any time during the production why no one went to the writers and demanded a rewrite. Now if you are going to make a story about a rich mythology, I would hope that someone at sometime would have done at least a little research about it ... I wouldn't be as upset except they made a point of using the name of every god or goddess they could muster - if it were a random bunch of Nordic names it would be one thing, but it was fairly obvious that these characters were meant to BE the Norse gods-- c'mon, get the attributes correct! Its like someone was playing Quake and wrote down all that happened and made it into a script. This is a movie that every Heathen will regret. Pass it by.

It's easy to see how an idea like this gets commissioned . Someone contacts a producer with a pitch of " It's all about vikings fighting werewolves " or in other words DOG SOLDIERS with swords . So we all agree that there's a good premise ? Good . So why does everyone hate it ?

Easy to explain - the budget for one thing , well maybe the everything is summed up by the budget which means no decent director can hire worthwhile actors , make up crew etc . , or more realistically the producer couldn't hire a decent director in the first place . Not to be too cruel though and that is the director tries to disguise his small budget by shooting action scenes in the dark or holding on an extreme close up of a viking as he fights off an unseen pack of werewolves . Good try Mr Director but it's painfully obvious there's only enough money for two werewolf costumes

The other major irritant is that the cast are to be blunt extremely amateurish . All of them seem to come from another country with differing accents . We even have a multi-ethnic company of vikings with a contrived and needless explanation for it . Looking on the bright side Paterson Joseph doesn't appear and the actor in question Daz Crawford looks like he's playing an anorexic Mike Tyson with a Lancashire accent

I will be charitable and say the cast are not helped one bit by the dialogue . It really is heavy handed , stilted and bombastic . There's no camp value involved and you get the feeling it was written for the Royal Shakespeare Company . Unfortunately Will Shakespeare hadn't thought of adding monsters to any of his more turgid dramas and watching this film you may understand why