Movie Thoughts: The Northman

Shot beautifully, another film that benefits primarily from the natural majesty of its settings, as Iceland is the New Zealand of the northern hemisphere —a small, well-run island nation with scenery that’s cinematic and beautiful and alien without even trying. Rolling green, steely skies, smoky darkness, glowing fire. Two butt-ass naked men swing swords among seething flows of lava. Bitter forest glades with CGI snowflakes whirling. Psychedelic caves, infinite ice fields. Brilliant setting after brilliant setting. The soundtrack howls, groans, moans, slams, pounds, screams as the drones give us swooping aerial views.

It’s violent and graphic and gory, though not as much as I expected. I’m no viking expert, but I’m told The Northman is very historically accurate. My real surname traces all the way back to the mountain slopes of Norway. These are my ancestors. What a bunch of psychos. There is so much screaming, yelling, roaring in this movie. All Vikings did was battle-scream at each other, it seems. They would’ve slaughtered my flabby, American, corn-syrup-fed ass and not thought twice about it.

Everyone in the cast is solid. Solid work all around. Everyone enjoys sinking their teeth into the stylized dialogue. The dialogue is for Vikings what Deadwood was to the old West — overly poetic and flowery but pleasing to the ear and not too hard to understand. It’s Game of Thrones for history buffs. Forgive me for saying that.

Alexander Skarsgaard carries the movie well, though his accent is not always 100 percent…