‘The Northman’ Review: Robert Eggers’ Viking Epic Starring Alexander Skarsgård
deadline.comRevenge is a dish best served cold, and it doesn’t get any colder, literally or figuratively, than the bitter portion ladled up in Robert Eggers’ merciless yarn of medieval vengeance, The Northman.
This seriously nasty and violent tale comes across as an intense labor of love on the part of the American director and his Icelandic co-writer, the poet Sjón; there’s scarcely a moment of softness, sentiment or relaxation here, just fierce and ferocious determination to fight and prevail in an unstintingly harsh environment.
For the most part it’s an enthralling immersion in a forbidding time and place, enhanced by an immoderately attractive cast and saddled only by a dramatic sameness that settles in after a while and gradually diminishes the film’s impact.There haven’t been too many Viking movies, most likely because the time and place involved pretty seriously restrict the format to two things—sailing and marauding, and the more violent the better; Richard Fleischer’s 1958 The Vikings, which was very violent for its time, still stands tall in the mini-genre.
The Northman most certainly delivers on the mayhem front, as even the most fanatical action fans will feel sated by the time the last sword is swung.
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