Rarely has a trailer summed up what a film is about as well as young Prince Amleth witnesses the death of his father the King (Ethan Hawke) at the hands of the King’s brother Fjolnir (Claes Bang). On the run for his life, the boy vows revenge and the liberation of his mother (Nicole Kidman), although his father helpfully gave him a pep talk about the importance of revenge even before fratricide cemented Amleth’s fate.
Flash forward many years, and Amleth has grown into Alexander Skarsgård, who’s clearly lived a brutal life while pounding the Viking equivalent of protein shakes. When he hears that his uncle has been deposed and is now in charge of a farm in Iceland, he arranges to be sent there as a slave, bringing him close to fulfilling his long-cherished quest.
After collaborating on the screenplay with Icelandic poet and novelist Sjón, Eggers’ decision to place Fjölnir in a smaller setting lowers the stakes — there’s no throne to be reclaimed — in a way that dampens the drama. But the real hurdle is tickling the time before Amleth seeks revenge and wages some sort of psychological warfare against his uncle before finally pursuing his inevitable target.
A man of few words, Amleth finds time to bond with another slave (“Anya Taylor-Joy of The Queen’s Gambit”) and offers the prospect of a life that might transcend his pronouncement that “My heart knows only vengeance ‘, or stilted references to ‘The freezing river of hate running through my veins.’
Though this is a more commercial venture than something like The Lighthouse, Eggers gives the presentation a hallucinogenic quality by using washed out tones and black and white during the stark night time sequences. The dreamlike aspects are emblematic of a time when the gods were very much seen as interfering in human life, and visions of Odin and the Valkyries underscored the mix of superstition and mysticism.
Artist Frank Frazetta’s work seems to have shaped the look, and The Northman leans into its operatic violence in an occasionally gruesome way, which is hardly surprising.
What it doesn’t do is create something particularly meaty for the actors — unlike “Vikings” and Netflix’s recent prequel series — though “Lighthouse” veterans Willem Dafoe and Kidman are making the most of their limited screen time. (As a footnote, Kidman actually played Skarsgård’s wife in Big Little Lies, but hey, that’s Hollywood for you.)
“The Northman” collects many style points, with Eggers deftly finding a sweet spot between his indie film roots and the kind of big, muscular filmmaking that could draw in larger audiences with the promise of mindless spectacle.
However, at least a little more substance would certainly have helped to avoid the impression that “The Northman” is basically just killing time when Amleth is not directly involved in pursuing his righteous plan to kill Fjolnir.
The Northman opens in US theaters on April 22nd. He is rated R.