Title: Vikingdom (18)
Year: 2013
Running Time: 114 minutes
Director: Yusry Kru
Cast: Dominic Purcell (Elrick), Natassia Malthe (Brynna), Craig Fairbrass (Sven)
Notes: This is a Malaysian production with all the filming having taken place there despite the often icy realms depicted.
Rating: 3
Thoughts: Forgotten King Eirick must battle Thor, who is trying to gather up a set of relics that will allow him to take over the world. Oh, and Eirick is dead.
So he gathers up a band, including a woman who tends to wear bra-tops in the ice and snow, and heads off to battle Thor.
Along the way there are some clever ideas drawn from legend that are then poorly executed, numerous tiresome fight scenes and a laughable dragon that would have been embarassing in 1955.
A martial artist is shoehorned in, to no doubt to appeal to the Malaysian funding streams the film has, and most of the warriors try ludicrous things when fighting. My favourite is the aforementioned scantily clad woman who twists through the air to fire her arrows when she could surely just stand. Or kneel. Or do anything else.
The most irritating part is that they do touch on some nice ideas, especially when the lead character is involved in some mythological fantasy scenes.
This is quite a divisive film but to those that acclaim it and draw comparisons with Conan, the point is surely that those films were from more than thirty years ago.
And frankly, their execution was better.