Directed by:
Marcus NispelScreenplay:
Laeta KalogridisCinematography:
Daniel PearlComposer:
Jonathan EliasCast:
Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood, Russell Means, Clancy Brown, Nathaniel Arcand, Burkely Duffield, Ralf Moeller, Mike Dopud, Michelle Thrush, Nicole Muñoz (more)VOD (1)
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A thousand years in the past, a young Norse boy is left behind after his clan shipwrecks on the Eastern shores. Despite his lineage, the boy is raised by the very Indians his kinsmen set out to destroy. Now, as the Vikings return to stage another barbaric raid on his village, the 25 year-old Norse warrior wages a personal war to stop the Vikings' trail of death and destruction. Forging his own path, his destiny is revealed and his identity re-claimed. (20th Century Fox)
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Reviews (6)
The action in Pathfinder is so chaotic that you don’t know what’s happening, and you’ll only find out who killed whom when you see who leaves the fight alive. That this happened in the age of poetic and easy-to-follow fights à la 300 makes this failing inexcusable, especially in a movie based on action. And telling a story and guiding the characters are also beyond Marcus Nispel’s power. One must ask what is in this filmmaker’s power. In this case, just covering the screen with emotionally flat darkness. Pathfinder is a terrible film based on a script with the intelligence level of the worst video-game adaptations. Moreover, it is completely butchered by the final random scenes, reminiscent of Ed Wood’s filmmaking methods (long shots of an avalanche, taken from God knows where). After some hesitation, I’m awarding this one star. It has no place in cinemas.
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Norwegians, like a bunch of hobnailed predators, hippie Indians, and Karl Urban, half-naked, rides under majestic mountain peaks. Only old Homolka with a two-handed ax, praising the panoramas, is missing. Nispel is a loser who can scare you in all manner of ways, especially through his complete amateurism. Unwatchable bullshit.
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A gritty fantasy tale that somewhat reminded me of Conan the Barbarian. It has about as much in common with the historical reality of Vikings as I, an atheist, have with the role of a cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church. Within the genre, it's clearly below average in terms of both script quality and direction. The only noteworthy aspect might be the costumes. Overall impression: 25%.
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A bored Karl Urban in his least charismatic role to day, an interesting premise that is wasted, brutally heavy-handed fights (all of them in slow-motion!), awful-looking CGI blood in every other shot, a stupidly simple mythology and message, a plot that is not really worth talking about. In short, a brilliant example of a butchered high-budget and grandstanding project that has the soul of a hundred-year-old corpse.
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Pathfinder is roughly halfway between Emmerich's 10,000 BC misery and Gibson's Apocalypto pageantry. The thing that definitely imprints the film on the mind is its brutality. No blood or dirt is spared, heads and limbs fly through the air and the whole film is actually one big battle from start to finish. But that's also its problem - killing Vikings (and being killed by Vikings) gets boring after an hour, so there's nothing to do but wait to see what else the filmmakers come up with. They come up with about a quarter of an hour of a boring passage with a frozen lake crossing (and make the Vikings look like major league morons), followed by a scramble over rocks and a final battle on the ropes. I thanked the filmmakers for it - it was quite imaginative and (maybe thanks to the ropes, hehe) it caught my attention. All in all (thanks to the nice visuals) I give it three stars.__P.S. The scene in the snow (the protagonist drives away on a shield, followed by Vikings on an Indian sled) was too much, I admit.
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Gallery (12)
Photo © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
![Pathfinder - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/161/987/161987371_222b79.jpg)
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