I just couldnt shake off the feeling
… that I was watching a “Lord of the Rings” fan film. Every one of its 97 minutes just screams ‘Don’t spend a penny more than you have to!” The plot is a quest by a very small band of Vikings through uninhabited country. Lots of shots of scenery devoid of actors alternated with the actors walking through generic woods. Every 20 minutes or so one of the actors is attacked in the woods by three extras wearing identical full body concealing outfits. That way the same three extras can be reused for each attack scene. The Viking costumes and weapons look OK but are pretty much generic rental items. All indoor scenes are shot in flickering torchlight so that the sets don’t have to have a lot of detail. The combat scenes aren’t interesting, the extras all die instantly while the named actors linger on long enough to give death speeches.
This is being hyped as a fantasy film but there are no supernatural elements whatsoever. The actors spend a lot of time making obscene and scatological comments to show that they are macho and also make a few references to Norse mythology to remind us that they do not come from a Judeo-Christian culture. The lead character Steinar has no personality or charisma whatsoever. About halfway through they pick up a girl named Astrid to tempt us with the possibility of a romantic subplot, but she literally does nothing for the rest of the picture. The last item on the checklist is to get an [R] rating by having a female extra with no lines or purpose appear topless in blue body paint in two or three torch lit scenes.