When he was a boy, Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) saw his Viking king father (Ethan Hawke) murdered before his eyes by his asshole uncle (Claes Bang). He took off to the hills while his uncle stole his father’s kingdom and married his mother (Nicole Kidman). Years go by, and the now buff Amleth returns to fulfill a Viking prophecy and get revenge on his father’s killer.
The Northman is a gripping tale of Viking vengeance gussied up by director Robert (The VVitch) Eggars’ dreamy, arthouse visual style. The best moments of the movie come when Eggars leans heavy into Viking voodoo, mysticism, and black magic. There’s a cool scene involving a shaman and a severed head, a sweet battle where Skarsgard is forced to fight a living skeleton to claim the sword he is prophesized to vanquish his enemies with (this sequence convinced me that if they ever do King Conan, Eggars is the man to direct), and Bjork pops up as a freaky “Seeress”. The fiery finale between Skarsgard and Bang is impressive too.
Sometimes, Eggars’ approach is a bit too ponderous and slow for its own good (especially in the second act). However, whenever he finds his groove and melds his artsy inclinations with sword and sorcery shenanigans, the film really cooks. There’s a particularly good twist that sets up the third act that deftly plays with the conventions of your typical revenge thriller and Eggars does a nice job muddling the waters so that Skarsgard’s quest for revenge might not be as cut-and-dry as he thought.
The cast is strong all around. Skarsgard makes for a solid, brooding hero and Anya Taylor-Joy is exquisite as a slave girl-turned-love interest. Ethan Hawke also has some good moments in the prologue as Skarsgard’s doomed dad and Claes Bang has a quiet intensity as the villainous uncle. It’s Nicole Kidman who steals the movie though (and chews the scenery) as Skarsgard’s mother.
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