Il mistero del Ragnarok

Coming from a premiere screening of the Norwegian family adventure film "Gåten Ragnarok" I'd have to say I expected more. This is not a big genre in Europe, being a mix between a realistically told Indiana Jones and National Treasure and a tad of Jurassic Park. It's got appraisals from the first festivals it's been showed in Canada and USA, but that might have made my expectation too high.

We meet a couple of archaeologists which do an exciting find just when the scientist's funding are cut down. The find is a stone with old runes, which is old Nordic letter-writings carved in stones and wood. The find is supposed to be lead out of the mysterious find of the Oseberg viking ship, which is a real and factual unique find of a viking ship used as burial ground for two women made at Oseberg in the South of Norway.

The story is of course just adventure, and no answer to the riddle of who these women where, though one of the probably were a viking queen, and the other probably her slave. Still the archaeologist are both looking for a treasure and for more viking finds up in Finnmark in northern Norway.

The film starts up quite good, though the two kids slowly ruins the film for me with a bit to unprofessional play, but for a young audience (this film is rated 11 years in Norway), this will have good entertainment value. The audience in the theater thought so, I understand. Still there where too many plot holes for me, and I also found the story dragged a little too much for my taste. But then again this is not my genre of film if it's not kept more funny or realistically told.

I liked "Troll hunter" because of the great CGI and the humor, and I liked the action in Indiana Jones and "Jurassic Park", though I found "National treasure" to be boring, and "The Mummy" awful. This falls short of the best, but far better than the two worst. But good family entertainment, though too scary for the youngest if they don't have hands to hold.

When I found "Gåten Ragnarok", I had not heard about it at all, nor did I know what it was about. I browsed through the synopsis and it did seem interesting enough. And the fact that this was a Norwegian move, then I wanted to see what this movie had to offer.

The story in this movie turned out to be rather good actually. It had action, it had drama, it had a supernatural element, and of course a hint of adventure as well. I must admit that I was genuinely entertained with this movie.

"Gåten Ragnarok" had some very interesting characters in the character gallery. And these characters were all nicely detailed and fleshed out on the screen, and that was helped along by the fact that they had some pretty good performers on the cast list.

What really blew me away here was the CGI special effects. They were quite impressive, and I had not expected that level of work in a movie such as this.

I was really impressed with "Gåten Ragnarok", and this is a Norwegian movie that you should sit down and watch, even if you are not able to understand the Norwegian language.

"Ragnarok" really doesn't tread much ground that hasn't already been trampled in numerous "Sci. Fi. Channel" movies. No name actors doing pretty stupid things while a C.G.I. monster pursues them. The lead up to revealing the lake serpent is actually not bad. Norse Mythology is cleverly tied into the plot, and characters are introduced at an acceptable rate. Once the monster appears, believability flies out the window. Necessary equipment seems to develop out of thin air, and decades abandoned underground bunkers are magically illuminated. Nevertheless there is a story here and not just monster mayhem. All in all, you could do a lot worse, especially with some of the "Sci. Fi. Channels" poorer efforts. - MERK

A team of archaelogists with 2 kids follows the trace of an ancient Viking treasure map to a small lake with not much treasure in it - rusty helmets and such - but a surprisingly large monster that chases them around.

Sympathetic little monster movie with realistic characters. The historic set-up with Vikings who battled the monster 1,000 years ago is something new. The variety of the area - cave, lake, bunker, forest - demands a variety of escape strategies, thus the chase always remains thrilling. The two kid actors are not annoying, which is always reason to worry when the cast includes little kids. Since the movie was designed to be watched by young teenagers, too, the bodycount is not as high as in many stupid monster movies you regretted watching. All in all, 'Ragnarok' is a surprisingly satisfactory, round, entertaining movie.

Adventure, mythology, family life, old spirit of childhood. A beautiful film. Not good, great, ot unpredictable. But the right choice for young public and for their parents for nice memories. A map becoming warning. Idealism and not the perfect father. The truth and the confrontation against it and the end. So, real nice. But not for high expectations.