The Northman: Does It Go to Valhalla?

I've been intrigued by this movie ever since I saw the first trailer.  I was familiar with the director's other films (The Witch and The Lighthouse) but I never watched them.  When I saw the preview, I was hooked.  A viking revenge movie? That sounds awesome.  It was one of the movies I really wanted to see this month.  Does it deliever? That's what I'm here to tell you.

The Northman is directed by Robert Eggers and stars Alexander Skarsgård, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, and Claes Bang.  When young prince Almeth (Skarsgård) sees his father brutally murdered by his uncle (Bang), he goes on a quest to avenge him.  With all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

This movie is The Lion King but with vikings.  I mean that in the best way possible.  It's actually a better remake than the one we got in 2019.  The Northman is a great film.  The two standouts for me were Almeth and Olga (Taylor-Joy).  Skarsgård was great here.  You can tell that Almeth has been through a lot.  He's like a machine, just looking to kill his uncle.  A lot of this role is the physicality.  Skarsgård is ripped here and looks like a viking.  What was really interesting to me was that he wasn't afraid to be vulnerable.  There are moments when he isn't afraid to show compassion.  With all of that being said, he isn't a perfect guy.  Almeth does some shady things in this film (I won't spoil it).  Beneath it all, however, he's just a boy who wants to avenge his father. I mentioned Olga earlier. She is a slave that Almeth encounters and develops a relationship with.  What I really liked about her is that she's not a damsel in distress.  She claims to be a sorceress and we get to see some of that.  I always liked Anya Taylor-Joy and she did a great job.  There's quite a few moments where we see her stand up to the uncle (sorry for the slight spoiler).  I really liked the world and lore.  It's a very realistic fantasy.  We hear (and actually see) the Valkyries, spirits who take fallen soldiers to Valhalla.  There's mythical swords, too.  I was constantly intrigued by the lore of this world.  The director said he wanted to be as accurate as he can and I think that he succeeded.  When watching this film, I felt like I was there.  It's grimy and not a very pleasant place.  There was a lot of attention to details, whether that be the weapons, clothing, or carvings.  The filmmakers knocked it out of the park.  This movie is also gorgeous to look at.  There's one scene in particular that stands out to me which involves a volcano.  You'll know it when you see it.  It's just beautiful.  The score of this movie also complements the visuals.  It gave the movie a truly epic feel and added a lot of emotional weight to it.  Robert Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough did an incredible job.  Another thing that stood out to me was the action.  It's brutal and animalistic (much like the vikings themselves).  Many of the action sequences were done in one take and it's pretty impressive.  It was all so smooth.  There's a lot of stuff going on, but the director did a good job of making sure the audience was able to discern what was happening.

I don't have a ton of issues with this movie.  I know for certain that it's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.  I saw it with two friends and they were pretty meh on the whole.  At one point in the film, there's a pretty big time jump that happens right after Almeth sees his father killed.  It cuts from him rowing away, swearing his vengeance, to him being an adult.  I wanted to see more of what happened during this span of time.  How did he take care of himself?  How did this group of vikings find him?  I think it would've been pretty interesting to see, but since the movie is almost two hours and twenty minutes, I can see why they didn't venture in too much.  I also thought we would see more of Ethan Hawke, who plays Almeth's dad, King Aurvandil.  I was guessing he would show up in flashbacks but this never happened.  This next part I'm not sure whether it's a valid criticism.  There were some parts of the movie where it was kind of hard to see what was happening.  I'm not sure if it was because of the theater I was in (I loathe the Southington AMC) or if it was because it was shot that way.  Another minor gripe I had was that it was a bit hard to understand the characters at times.  I heard that was an issue people had with Eggers' other film, The Witch.  With that being said, it'd be pretty stupid to have the vikings speak in perfect english, so I understand the decision.  It was never detrimental to the movie and didn't ruin the experience for me.

The Northman is a brutal tale of revenge that I really dug.  The cast was great, particularly Skarsgård and Taylor-Joy,  the world and lore were very interesting, it was gorgeous to look at, the music was beautiful, and the action was brutal.  Some things that hold it back are that I wished we had gotten to see more of what happened to Almeth during the time jump, it would've been nice to see more of the king character, at some points it's a little hard to see what's happening, and the movie can be hard to understand at times, but these are very minor issues.  If I were to rate it, I'd give The Northman an 8.5-9/10.  I'd highly encourage you to go see it in a theater!