Valhalla Rising

"Valhalla Rising" is a strange movie that will split the audience into lovers and haters like you can see in the comments here. To me its these movies that are most interesting. If a movie goer sees a movie like this with breathtakingly beautiful and artistic cinematography on a low budget and still rates it with one or two stars, its either pure ignorance or something was struck that resonated in a negative way.

I already loved the previous movies of director Winding Refn but this one goes into a totally different direction. Its hard to explain the plot because most of it happens in the viewers head. What you see is mostly mythological and religious symbolism all revolving around the main character "One eye". A warrior who fights with a raw power of which we never know its human or not because he is mute and keeps the same empty expression in his face throughout the movie (only in some scenes it seems like hints of a smile shine through).

The movie starts with "One eye" held captive and has to fight battles to the death in which he always prevails. This first part of the movie has some raw violence in it and could be viewed as the "most entertaining" part because after this "Valhalla Rising" turns into a slow moving journey to an unknown place with barely any dialog and a droning ambient soundtrack.

Its hard to say what really happens in the several segments the movie is split into but the religious tone ("Hell", "Sacrifice") already show this is not a movie on a more existential level. And as I am still trying to piece the impressions of "Valhalla Rising" together I find that its a movie that sticks with you long after watching if you let yourself dive into the dense atmosphere. The imagery is stunning throughout, the most simple shots like a close up of knifes being washed in a river look like a beautiful painting and the constant difference between the beauty of the cinematography and the cold colors, raw violence and the dark droning soundtrack are as captivating as Mads MIkkelsen playing the cold expressionless "One Eye" like a force of nature.

I can't put my finger on what sucked me into this movie but "Valhalla Rising" is an experience open minded movie fans should not miss and I am looking forward to future projects from this promising director.

But I'll try, how about horrible or awful or abysmal? No, those are too gentle for what has to be one of most self absorbed, pretentious, and poorly directed films I've ever seen and definitely the absolute worst of the Viking genre.

I stumbled upon this film not knowing what to expect beyond the brief description of the movie in the summary and a few of the rosier reviews would lead one to believe that his is a piece of life changing existentialist art. Those reviews are every bit as vacuous and pretentious as the aimless direction provided by Nicolas Refn. How self involved, how self important, how narcissistic was Refn's directing? We could have spent 90 minutes watching Refn masturbate on film, and in essence that's just what we did.

Let us start with the historical inaccuracies which abound in this "work of art" to such a degree that one must not only suspend disbelief, one must take it out into the woods and leave it for dead. When directing a period film it's not always necessary to get every little detail right, but it would be nice if you could at least get the basics down but even that is beyond Refn. In fact he does manage to achieve the near impossible, getting almost nothing right. The boat, the weapons, the armor, their hygiene, the settlement, their customs...honestly next to "Valhalla Rising" the 1954 classic "Prince Valiant" is practically historical documentary. Well strike one, if we can't have even rudimentary accuracy then at least we'll have an interesting story right? Right? Wrong. What we have instead is a display of Refn's conceit as he presents us with a script that is half art house cinema and half epic drama, and yet it is both uninteresting and banal. About half way through the film it suddenly dawned on me WHY it was so badly written. It is badly written because Refn had no clue how to write either an art film or an epic, so what he did was write to formula what he thought an art film and an epic should have. You can almost hear him checking off the list "...mysterious warrior (check), barbaric Vikings (check), filthy Christian crusaders (check), clash of cultures (check), existential struggle (check), recurring themes (check)..." and the result is a hackneyed script written in a paint by numbers manner that has neither soul nor inspiration. You can tell, too, because as good as the acting is you simply cannot bring yourself to care about anyone in the film. The pacing is atrocious, the dialog bounces between being merely bad to painfully over wrought, and much of the acting is tired and uninspiring. The saving grace of the film is the wonderful cinematography, oh, and the scenery is nice, except when the actors are chewing it of course.

All in all this was an immense waste of time and I'd not even have bothered to review it except the people who keep writing these glowing "oh it's a life altering masterpiece" need to be balanced out with a healthy dose of reality.

The human nature is very strange.You see a movie still, an artwork, or whatever, and you think you know everything about a movie, you haven't even seen yet.Yes, like most of you, my expectations were at a very different level, but i was simply not prepared for what i saw.

This movie is epic, although the small proportions of it.And by proportions, i mean budget, scale, those things.The only thing i knew before seeing the movie, was an actor i have seen before-One Eye, or Mads Mikkelsen.He was great in Casino Royale and was one of the few things i liked about Clash of the Titans.So that's the main reason i went to see the movie.

But after all, i wasn't left disappointed, because the movie was good in a light, i haven't predicted.It was relentless, ruthless, brutal, but fascinating as well.It has a few underline stories, involving Christianity and faith in God, as well as paganism and disbelief.There are some Christian taboos as well.And according to Christianity "Valhalla" means hell not the place, where all warriors go.That's in the Scandinavian literature.

The story is pretty simple-a man is being kept as a prisoner, until he escapes with a boy.They meet some Vikings on their way to Jerusalem.They travel together, but next thing you know they find themselves on an isolated shore.The men start dying one by one, which forces them to think, they're in hell.They see the quiet One Eye as the man to blame.

The acting of One Eye was great-the thing, that caught my attention till the very end.He did an outstanding job, and if you want to hear him talk, see Titans or Casino Royale, instead.Because that is something very different.It is set on a smaller scale, and is gruesome and a little bit pointless at time, but that obviously was the point...

The thing i have against the movie, is the fact, it is too slow.It is creative, beautiful, masterful direction most of the time, but it is simply slow and even boring at moments.The dialogue is rare to be found.There was a scene, i didn't quite understood, because of the lack of dialogue.And the scene was important.If this was the idea, well, it wasn't transfered good to the audience.And if it wasn't, this means one thing-poor screen writing.But nevertheless, a good movie, not great, not terrible as well.It is hard to be explained.Maybe, "strange" is the word, i'm looking for.See it.Judge for yourself.

If you're waiting to see endless battles, that's not the movie for you.It has battles, but in a very small amount of time.If you're looking for a different take on Religion, movie-making and acting, see it.And, pointless at times, slow and boring-those are the things that can bother You.But if You overcome them, You'll probably like it a little bit more, because it builds intensity and mystery, sooner or later.

A movie, not from this decade, but a movie, that should have been made.A movie not for anyone.

My rate:6/10

Valhalla Rising came out of nowhere, the trailer looked promising and had a "300" vibe to it. It looked stylized but realistic, brutal and with a respectable story. A plethora of aspects were extremely disappointing. The first few minutes are an outstanding way to start off this film, but the fifty minutes after are extremely boring. I was tempted to leave. While I enjoy a nice story with brutal action, there isn't much of a story here. It's more about the mythology than the story., and you'll hope for something to occur as each pointless minute passes along until the credits start to roll. It is one that is open to interpretation but most people won't bother. It simply doesn't make sense, and it has that "House of 1000 Corpses" random picture factor that gives it an easy way to be called unique. "One Eye" was the only iconic character in this film, the rest have a 21st century feeling in the way they look and dress. The world was often too grim and dark to fully enjoy the scenery. The attention to detail is impressive but felt only known to the writers as Valhalla Rising failed to present what it wanted to towards the audience.

I do applaud the filmmakers for creating a respectable indie film with their limited resources. Its' best features are the voices/sound effects, the vibrant (almost pink) blood in the dark setting and the brutal (but limited) action sequences.

Simply put, I am extremely disappointed. In the end, if you're looking for a brutal film with an epic storyline, you won't find one here. If you want something unique to everything else out there, a film with an underlying deep meaning like no other film out there, you may find Valhalla Rising worth your time. Audiences will be split.

I saw it as a poem. Heavy, beautiful cinematography,Mads Mikkelsen as perfect option for One Eye, the Crusade theme and the visions as parts of ancient world source of meanigs, the lonely, silent man and the boy beautiful illustrated. Not comfortable images but fair illustration of a lost world spirit. So, admirable poem about life, options , answers and duty.