Vikingdom

The Malaysian-made Vikingdom is mostly a travesty.  The story opens with the death of our hero, Eirik Bloodletter (Dominic Purcell), King of Jomsberg.  Ten years later, Thor the Thunder God assembles an army to destroy Midgard (that would be the world of men).  Why does he want to do this?  Mostly, he seems pissed about the rise of the one God who is replacing the Norse Gods.  So as not to leave out some historical revisionism, Thor leads a fleet to attack Lindesfarne in 793 – this is the traditional start date and location for the Viking Age.  There he captures a necklace that belonged to the Virgin Mary, an artifact vital in his plans to unravel the world.

 

Meanwhile, in a Scandinavian forest, Eirik Bloodletter is living the life of a hermit.  It turns out that he had been having an affair with Freya – fertility/love goddess – and she was unwilling to let him stay dead.  However, she could never see him again after his resurrection and he abdicated his throne in favor of his brother.  Thor’s gambit has convinced Eirik to end his hermitage and seek to defeat the Thunder God.  The only thing that can stop Thor is a magic horn that is hidden in Helheim (the Norse land of the dead).  Because he has been resurrected, he is considered ‘undead,’ and can travel to and from Helheim.  He is uniquely suited to the task.

 

Eirik collects a crew in Osberg and hires a boat captained by a woman!  Most of his crew are ordinary Vikings but a couple are bizarre.  There is Brynna (Natassia Malthe), the owner of the ship who wears a leather halter top though they are often trudging through snow.  Of course, she falls in love with Eirik.  Then there is Yang the martial artist.  We first meet him as the slave of a bumpkin.  How did that come to pass?  Yang often speaks Chinese but when it is important, he speaks perfectly understandable Norse.  Why is this character here?  Along the way, they recruit Alcuin the Druid who bears some uncanny similarities to Gandalf.  Though Brynna and Yang were irritating, I liked Alcuin.  He was the wisest of the characters and acted to save the world, sometimes without informing his allies. 

 

Dominic Purcell is wooden, delivering most of his lines with a dull monotone.  Sven, his right-hand man, has a working-class British accent.  Conan Stevens in a ridiculous red wig and beard stars as an often bare-chested, skirt-wearing Thor with a ludicrous plastic hammer standing in for Mjolnir.  OMG!  How can you cast Thor as the villain?  Frey, the male fertility god, looks like a medieval drag queen.

 

At one point, when trying to recruit a crew in a shield hall, Eirik gives a monotone speech about how he’s likely to die and so is everyone who comes along, so, you know, maybe you could join me.  No St. Crispin’s Day speech there!

 

The movie does have action.  Multiple fights showcase flying sword strikes, spinning arrow dodges, leaping archery, bear-wrestling, and plentiful blood.  Of course, the fighting has no resemblance to the actual tactics of the era.  I was astonished at how few shields there were.  When there was a shield wall – a standard tactic that is shown in the Vikings TV series on History – they use kite shields rather than the large round shields.  The axes are not Viking axes.  The swords are not Viking swords.  It is as if no one even cracked open a single history book on the subject; perhaps that is how Thor got cast as a villain.  On the positive, I would have loved this movie when I was twelve.