The Northman (2022)

Having witnessed the murder of his father, King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke), by his uncle, Fjölnir (Claes Bang), the young Viking prince, Amleth (Oscar Novak), rows away pledging vengeance.

Years later the princeling has grown up to be a mighty berserker (Alexander Skarsgård) in the Land of The Rus.

After a raid, Amleth is visited by a mysterious seeress (Björk) who reminds him of his Fate to slay his uncle and free his mother, Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman), from Fjölnir's clutches.

Amleth learns that Fjölnir has been usurped and now lives as a chieftain in Iceland, so he stows away on a boat of captive slaves, disguising himself as part of the cargo.

On the boat to Iceland he meets and befriends Olga of the Birch Forest (Anya Taylor-Joy).

Arriving at Fjölnir's homestead, at the foot of a mighty volcano, Amleth passes himself off as 'just another slave', but is soon guided mystically to a cave where he receives another vision.

This one sends him to retrieve the magical Night Blade, which will be the instrument of his vengeance.

Working with Olga, Amleth then begins in earnest his campaign against the man who slew his father.

Inspired by historical Viking sagas, directed by Robert Eggers (of The Witch and The Lighthouse), and with such a phenomenal cast (including my favourite, Anya Taylor-Joy), The Northman should have been a shoo-in to take my "film of the year" crown (as I have seen it declared by several of my geeky peers).

But there's something not quite right about the flow of the core narrative.

Amleth's quest is such a stop-start affair that the choppy pacing at the heart of the film is really jarring.

There's so much to love about this movie - it features an actual magic sword, for crying out loud - that the patchy, and rather bloated, middle third is such a disappointment.

Speaking as an armchair director, I'm pretty sure The Northman would have benefitted from tightening its two hour 17 minute running time by a good 20 minutes.

Conversely, the ending is superb, tackling head-on central themes of many Viking stories (namely, fate and revenge) in a setting more than reminiscent of the climax of Revenge of The Sith.

Eggers, from a script he co-wrote with Icelandic author Sjón, deftly handles the magic-realism of the Nordic acceptance of everyday sorcery as he weaves a tale only slightly more grounded than The Green Knight.

Alexander Skarsgård has already proved himself as a great physical actor in shows like True Blood and movies such as The Legend of Tarzan.

Here he is outstanding as Amleth, a Scandinavian Conan the Barbarian, from moments of brutal aggression to when he's employing his stealth and cunning to get the better of Fjölnir's men, his presence dominates every scene he is in.

The Conan vibe is most front-and-centre in the scene where Amleth obtains the Night Blade, which strongly echoes Conan's retrieval of the Atlantean sword in 1982's Conan The Barbarian.

With its powerful lead and its atmospheric use of the landscape and mise-en-scène, The Northman is this close to brilliance that it's hugely disappointing that the juddering middle act comes dangerously close to derailing the whole thing.

The script reaches a point where it could have gone either way, and Eggers' cannily pulls out a twist that - for me - saved the film and strengthened the theme beautifully.

In the end, I enjoyed The Northman (more than I thought I would when I was about halfway through), but I was expecting better from this cast and crew.