Through the vikings probably deserves some of the disgraceful film made about them, we as an audience do not. Well, to be honest, the film only has "viking" in it's name since there are no actual vikings in the film. Somewhere in (I assume) 8th century Scandinavia, two warring clans plan to unite through the marriage of the princess Tasya and the king Wolven. Tasya childhood friend Erick "the blessed" has the hots for Tasya, a feeling that is sort of answered, but not enough for Tasya to abandon her promised to be. Unfortunately, the dastardly Völsungs (no relation the mythological clan, but nice touch) frequently carries out sacrifices of princesses to the Midgard Serpent, Loki's dragon-seed. Since king Sigvat of the Völsungs has no children his soldiers nabs the princess in the process. Now it's up to Erick and Wolven to set their differences aside and rescue the princess.
It's the standard story. Nothing special, but can be a fun adventure for a Friday evening. To bad the film is so badly made. The fight scenes are under all standards for a film even of this budget. The editing does not even try to hide the baffling feeble choreography. Seeing that this is a low budget romp, some special effect failures are to be expected, but this film does not even try to work around that. We have a storm that is obviously shot in a studio. Guys, could you not even had intern splashing water with buckets? It's the driest storm ever! A little extra effort could have pushed it to an at least acceptable level. Is a little more effort to much to ask. Now, the acting is really uneven. But in the case of the leads I do blame it on the director and not the actors. Harry Lister Smith and Jenny Boyd are pretty convincing as childhood friends with a scent of romance. You can see that they do have some acting chops, they are just in a bad movie. Same goes for Oliver Walker as Wolven. Anya Taylor-Joy was in the sensation that was The Witch, but I have not seen that yet. But she is not very good in this film.
As stated above, the script is pretty standard, through there is a minor twist which is neat in it's own little way. Then the scenery is really nice. Mostly, the costumes seem to be roughly accurate. Most of the clothes, armors and helmets are pretty authentic to what I've seen in museums and books. That's not to say that this film is historically accurate. A high medieval castle is dropped in the middle of Scandinavia in the freaking 7th century and is painfully out of sync with the rest of the iconography of the film. Then, they have a male character called Hild. Talk about not doing the research...
If you are looking for a so bad that it's good viking film, Viking Quest is what you look for. Through not good at all, it's never boring. Like Troll 2 or Death Academy or any Ed Wood film, it's a charming bad movie. So grab your cowhorns, pass the mead and have a laugh.
