The Viking Sagas
I re-watched this movie and took notes for this review, then lost the notes. My wife said yesterday--"you mean we watched that movie a second time for nothing!?" So in the interest of imbuing life's suffering with meaning (and from memory), I give you: "Viking Sagas" starring Ralf Moeller.
Click here for trailer on You Tube.
First thing I noticed during the credits was lots of Scandinavian sounding names--good sign, right? Guess not. The main problem with this movie is the lead actor-- he's a German body builder who makes Schwarzenegger look like a true thespian. His range goes from stony-faced (used most of the time) to stony-faced with buggy eyes (used for killing people and having sex). He's a lumbering hulk. The story goes that he's the son of a warrior chief who didn't want him to be a warrior, so never trained him to fight (so how he got to be twice as beefy as all the other warriors?) Any way, the bad guys kill the father--who buys Ralf some time by disemboweling himself and then wrapping his intestines around a giant standing stone. This is by far the best scene in the movie. So Ralf escapes and goes to find The Best Warrior Ever to train him up so he can avenge his Fadder. When he finds him, he's like a paunchy middle aged Oak Ridge Boy with a mullet and a leather headband, and Ralf gets to deliver this classic line: "My Fadder wrapped his guts around a stone so I could find you." Well, they chuck the old spear around a while until Ralf can catch it in mid-air and whip it around and throw it back, then he's ready to go save the princess, defeat the bad guys, etc.
Other weird things about this movie: all the Vikings wear kilts (?), and the sound track is mainly didgeridoo. Oh, and they ride these tiny Icelandic ponies around, which is probably historically accurate, but looks silly as hell.
The landscape, which is Iceland, is actually really pretty, and I'll admit to enjoying the surreal spectacle of this muscle-bound beefcake bouncing along the barren countryside on his pony, holding his feet out so they don't drag the ground, while the didgeridoo warbles--but even that wasn't enough to make this worth watching, twice.
Do yourself a favor and watch "Arn the Knight Templar" twice instead.
Click here for trailer on You Tube.
First thing I noticed during the credits was lots of Scandinavian sounding names--good sign, right? Guess not. The main problem with this movie is the lead actor-- he's a German body builder who makes Schwarzenegger look like a true thespian. His range goes from stony-faced (used most of the time) to stony-faced with buggy eyes (used for killing people and having sex). He's a lumbering hulk. The story goes that he's the son of a warrior chief who didn't want him to be a warrior, so never trained him to fight (so how he got to be twice as beefy as all the other warriors?) Any way, the bad guys kill the father--who buys Ralf some time by disemboweling himself and then wrapping his intestines around a giant standing stone. This is by far the best scene in the movie. So Ralf escapes and goes to find The Best Warrior Ever to train him up so he can avenge his Fadder. When he finds him, he's like a paunchy middle aged Oak Ridge Boy with a mullet and a leather headband, and Ralf gets to deliver this classic line: "My Fadder wrapped his guts around a stone so I could find you." Well, they chuck the old spear around a while until Ralf can catch it in mid-air and whip it around and throw it back, then he's ready to go save the princess, defeat the bad guys, etc.
Other weird things about this movie: all the Vikings wear kilts (?), and the sound track is mainly didgeridoo. Oh, and they ride these tiny Icelandic ponies around, which is probably historically accurate, but looks silly as hell.
The landscape, which is Iceland, is actually really pretty, and I'll admit to enjoying the surreal spectacle of this muscle-bound beefcake bouncing along the barren countryside on his pony, holding his feet out so they don't drag the ground, while the didgeridoo warbles--but even that wasn't enough to make this worth watching, twice.
Do yourself a favor and watch "Arn the Knight Templar" twice instead.
posted by Brad at
9:00 AM
1 Comments:
Ahhh yesss. I also like to hone my battle loins under the tutelage of a paunchy Oak Ridge Boy. Must be the Icelandic Pat Morita archetype.
I hope those ponies were not overburdened.
The CW gave me a gift this weekend--the gift of "Latin Dragon". Review coming soon!
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