I had high hopes for this tale of two Vikings stranded in North America circa 1007 AD. After their party has been attacked by "skraelings" (Indians), Orn and Volnard are left for dead and must find their way home on foot. Sounds promising, but when the highlight of a film turns out to be an unflinching shot of a guy taking an honest-to-Odin shit in the woods, you know you're in trouble. I'll stand up and applaud that director Tony Stone had the sand to include that shot (and take the dump, as he plays the role of "Orn"), but one great shit-shot does not a movie make.In the week since its DVD release, I've heard this movie referred to time and again as an "epic." I think that's a pretty strong word, especially when 90% of the flick is nothing but these two guys walking through the forest and chopping wood. To be sure, the cinematography is great, especially for the budget. There's no shortage of great shots of all kinds of natural beauty and lush landscapes. Then again, the same could be said of a catalog of Bob Ross paintings. Do you really want to spend two hours looking at that? Yeah, I know the film is cut up periodically with big red chapter titles to explain what's going down, lest we assume it's all been merely more walking and chopping. In all fairness, things were spiced up considerably when Orn and Volnard walked in different directions for a while; that's under the big red title of "SEPARATION." Enthralling.
Of course, I'm oversimplifying (barely) things. Yeah, they meet (and kill) some monks, kill a chicken live and in your face, and build a shelter. Volnard has a mini-spiritual quest, and Orn is abducted and molested by an Indian chick in some kind of great white man's fantasy that plays out even lamer than it sounds. And if you think that's lame, just wait until you see Orn doing some Dave Mustaine-esque headbanging for no apparent reason. Who knew? All of this excitement backed by various strains of metal music (Burzum, Morbid Angel, Priest) and capped off with subtitled dialogue that reads more like junior high circa 1989 (the fish is "killer" and "we're toast if we stay here") than Newfoundland 1007 AD.
I give major props for the ambition behind this low-budget picture, but there just wasn't enough there to keep me intrigued. Fiore Tedesco is believable as Volnard, but Stone plays Orn like he was one of those annoying twits from high-school that wore a Thor's hammer around his neck, fronted like a badass, still got his ass kicked by the meekest of guys on the math team, and now spends lots of time playing live action versions of Dungeons and Dragons when not serving up chicken at the local KFC. Not exactly great Viking material. Perhaps his next film will see him stay behind the camera and try to develop a little bit more of a story.
2 outta 5 Viking hammers
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