I generally try to know as little as possible about a movie before I go to see it, but one look at the poster for The Northman had me pretty confident that I was certainly not going to watch it, so I gleefully read Glen Weldon’s review and chuckled, especially, at this bit: “Like Hamlet, however, Amleth forgets himself, getting so caught up in his life of murder (and, from the available evidence, in his Crossfit routine) that he gets remonstrated by an otherworldly Seeress (Björk, somehow inevitably) who reminds him of his vow,” and felt very validated and confirmed in my intentions of skipping it. So inevitably, when we had managed to hire a babysitter so that we could go see Everything Everywhere All At Once, we arrived at the theater and learned that it was sold out. “Well, you could see The Northman…” said the helpful ticket agent. And here’s the thing about me: I will actually see pretty much anything on the big screen. Especially if I’ve already hired a babysitter and eaten dinner.
WOW is this a terrible movie. It is so terrible that I was actually mostly pretty entertained, because we Millenials are experts in ironic enjoyment, and this film is really pretty perfectly pitched to be an MST3K style cult classic. Probably the most hilariously ridiculous part of the movie is the romance side-plot with Anya Taylor-Joy, who has a suitably silly accent (except hers is of the pseudo Eastern European variety), but gets a few scenes of badassery. But of course, as Female Love Interest, her issues as a fellow captive are completely sidelined in favor of the obviously much more important revenge plot. Let me pause here to note that one thing that the movie actually does quite well is to make it quite clear that all the warfare and pillaging that is going on definitely involves lots and lots of rape, but you are never forced to suffer through watching it — that is, you get to enjoy cartoonish violence while being insistently reminded that it’s not just the brave fighting men who are suffering. This sets you up all the more to notice how Anya Taylor-Joy’s situation as enslaved captive is actually very different from Alexander Skarsgård’s. In one scene, as they meet, Skarsgård asks her what she’s been up to lately, and she explains that she’s gathering herbs to induce abortion, because, you know, she needs those. He tells her that he has gotten the weapon he needs to get revenge, escape, etc.
Great! she says. When do we leave?
Oh, not yet. It’s not the fated moment yet.
Ok…
A few scenes later, he’s like, uh, something came up, I must now escape into the mountains.
Great! she says. I’ll come too!
No, you stay here.
Ok…
To be fair, there are some moments that are kind of cool. The trippy visuals mostly come across as campy, but every so often, there’s something that actually works. I sort of wished that I was high a few times, but then I realized that if I had been I probably would have peed myself from laughing so hard during the first 20 minutes of the movie, and been an utter nuisance to the other people in the theater, so it’s for the better. Even without being in an altered state of mind, there are so many moments where you’re just like, man, white people are so fucking weird. But if you enjoy Conan the Barbarian style action, or a properly violent revenge plot, there are definitely a number of scenes that you’ll appreciate. And as a retelling of Hamlet, there are a few twists that explore some nuances of the original storyline in clever ways.
I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie. But I had quite a jolly time watching it.
Kasia Reads 