The Northman

Oh! Thank you gods above, below, and in-between!

Bit more than you would think is found here, I mean I could tell from the trailers and TV spots that it was more or less a revenge story of a boy avenging his father who was killed by his uncle, I know, very commonplace, and yet there were snippets of more otherworldly aspects so I knew there was something more afoot here. I'm partially correct but you could almost argue the instances of nordic mythology are legit or more imaginary, and I'll let you know my standpoint later. Also, highly appreciative of so many aspects of that particular culture in that particular time and place in the world without any handholding. They don't need to explain it, you either know or can infer what the customs are save for one particular tidbit which I was proud to know of beforehand. For a director who has barely begun his career, Robert Eggers has made quite a name for himself in recent years and really shows the grandiose scenery in abundance, with excellent use of editing and camera techniques. Casting though not everyone is super recognizable does mighty good work and sells the often times highly dramatic form of speaking in that period of history, I mean of course I give love to Alex and Anya who were great and had a nice dynamic throughout. But I give fair props to Claes Bang for being more than just a foul bastard to hate and hiss at throughout but has moments where you genuinely think maybe he is a different man. I very much loved the possible inspirations for a lot of the material here, I saw bits of Shakespeare, Assassin's Creed, The Witcher, quite a fair bit of Ghost Of Tsushima, even Clash Of The Titans. Now for the discussion of whether or not there is some higher power at play here, without spoiling much you see some non-mortal forces in this movie and it is appropriate for the characters and the time period, and I was up in the air on if it was for really realsies or not until we got to the ravens. Through my readings I learned some time ago that Odin's eyes and presence are ravens and you see them several times including an important scene for our hero, and again it's not spelled out for you so when that occured there wasn't a doubt in my mind the gods had a hand in this plot. I friggin' loved that. Gives it a sense of being bigger and epic for our hero which gives more a drive for the audience. Though honestly, the soundtrack alone got me involved so quick and got me fired up for events, spectacular work on the score. A sort of unconventional movie for sure in terms of style and culture but great nontheless. 4 stars, 8.5/10, and the birthday week has officially started so we'll find something to talk about before too long.