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Originally Posted by Janszoon
Valhalla Rising
Holy crap, this movie was terrible! Imagine a film where Nicolas Winding Refn took the stoicism of Driver from Drive (which I loved) and applied it to every single character in the movie and you have some sense of what this is like. Long on rough-looking men standing around wordlessly in the fog and/or mud and short on little niceties like character and plot, this movie features a bunch of unnamed, one dimensional characters essentially doing nothing for an hour an half. Except sometime they kill each other for no apparent reason. The end. |
Seriously? I thought it was an absolute masterpiece. The sense of isolation was brilliantly portrayed. 99% of people would probably have lived this sort of existence and laughter and camaraderie would be in short supply.
The colour schemes, the minimal soundtrack, the interaction with the young kid through pure image and facial expressions painted pictures far more potent than trite dialogue could ever muster regarding the film's setting.
I personally think it's one of the very few films I have seen that is pure art. Different strokes for different folks I guess but a terrible film? Mate I am disheartened
Neil LaBute has a decent reputation for intelligent wordplay and characterisation in his movies (the remake of The Wicker Man apart - idiot) and this race orientated movie has some well realised, insidious dialogue but it was let down by a typical Psycho in the neighbourhood premise in the last third. Still worth a watch though and the general reliance on dialogue above action should be applauded.
Time to show my true colours with some B movie action! Released the same time as Swayze's breakthrough Dirty Dancing this is a cliched romp through a post apocalyptic time when a lone warrior makes his stand, gets himself cut to bits, survives and then leaves the people he has saved because he doesn't belong!
I hadn't seen this for over 20 years but it is still decent enough in terms of direction and cinematography. Still far more watchable than the last 20 years of Stephen Segals output.