Le Secret du Ragnarok

"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

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.

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.

It's always interesting to watch non-English movies. Those overtly original and peculiar to their own roots and culture are undoubtedly instructive and they made Cinema history. Among foreign films, however, I prefer to watch those made on Hollywood models, like the present one. They intrigue me the most.

Ragnarok is a very well written, acted, edited and directed Family Adventure movie. The overall result is not dissimilar from American films of the same genre: a nice film. Some differences, however, are noteworthy and at the first place stands the complete inversion of roles in the couple: in this film the girl is strong and the guy is pretty. He has beautiful hair, good manners and is sweet. She leads the group, takes all the risks, makes all the decisions and physically saves him. And this is probably where he falls in love with her.

I don't want to speculate about how this could reflect different points of view of different societies (about which I know nothing). Everything happens in the most natural way and it is so nice to watch. I guess that many girls will like it.

It should also be noticed that the musical score is Cymbal-free and that characters motives are more simple and realistic than in most American films. But these, of course, are details.

I had been wanting to watch this movie for a couple of months, but I could not find a version that had been dubbed in English - until now. This is a Norwegian film, so you'll need to find it with sub-titles or a version already dubbed in English. The quality of the audio dubbing was not all that great, but it worked. It was a lot better than having to read sub-titles or watch it in Norwegian.

A down-on-his-luck archaeologist is having problems with his job/research into Viking mythology. He's a widower and a single father of 2 children. After losing funding for his work due to lack of progress, his friend shows up from the northern coast of Norway with an ancient rune-stone, which launches them all into their next adventure.

Nothing here is too exceptional, scary, or gory. It's a decent movie for the whole family - and I'm not generally "into" family movies. So, I was surprised that I liked it so well. Honestly, I was expecting a little bit more from the "monster," but it wasn't completely cheesy either.

Overall, the plot was pretty predictable. I think I enjoyed it so much because there were believable characters and good acting - especially from the child actors. I find many child actors tend to make or break a movie like this, and these kids can hold their own. The main character was also a good actor. None of the acting was completely bad, which is why I think the whole thing worked. For being a lower-budget production, this movie holds up very well. It's a bit of a slow start, but once it gets going it steadily builds tension and held my interest right up to the ending.