User reviews

For a medieval fantasy flick, Northmen does look the part. It has fine cinematography and quite gory battle as the characters literally spend bulk of the movie running and fighting in nice vistas. They, however, lack the appeal or novelty to set up a grand tale it's meant to be, making the tour into foreign land a loud yet bland one.

Story revolves around a group of Vikings, or Northmen, as they journey through unfamiliar territory. The group has internal strife and ambition for riches, but none of their story is fully fleshed out. The motives or back stories, even for the antagonist role, are often glossed over. Furthermore, the movie introduces many typical characters such lost princess and the enigmatic priest, each with their own equally monotonous issue.

With stack of characters, it's unfortunate that none of them is actually interesting. The actors work with passable acting, but the script is basically told while they are in constant running. It buries the story as they roar and slash their way through. When the supposed dramatic scenes play out, chances are audience wouldn't be invested on these characters.

It does possess good visual, camera work and design. There are set pieces that offer decent skirmish, both in daylight or night time. Credit when credit is due, most movies with fantasy theme often become blurry as the fight continues after dawn, but Northmen gives good graphic and lighting even in these instances. Action is presentable as well, bit crude at times, but fits the theme nonetheless.

As an action movie, it benefits from above average presentation, however the story doesn't venture beyond the realm of mediocrity.

This is a must see for all those who like sword&sandal movies. The plot is too simple. The story could have been a little more with twists and subplots, not to mention a more detailed characterization. You have a bunch of northmen who are on hostile turf, but the problem is you just don't care when someone is mortally wounded and about to die. There isn't enough of a background story, the history of all the characters, why are they the way they are, their motivations. As a viewer you are left wondering...but not in a good way. The action scenes and also the location are pretty much the only things that save the film. It's always entertaining to watch a well done fighting scene at least for me. One more thing the actors are easy on the eyes, which is another plus. Go see it.

'NORTHMEN: A VIKING SAGA': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A Viking action flick, about vikings trapped in enemy territory, directed by Claudio Fah (who also helmed the direct to video sequels 'HOLLOW MAN 2' and 'SNIPER: RELOADED') and written by Mattias Bauer and Bastian Zach (who also wrote the Swiss B movie horror flick 'ONE WAY TRIP 3D'). The film stars Tom Hopper, Ed Skrein, Charlie Murphy, Ryan Kwanten, James Norton, Ken Duken, Anatole Tubman, Johan Hegg, Leo Gregory and others. I thought it was entertaining enough, to pass the time with, but nothing special or memorable.

The film tells the story of a group of vikings, who become stranded in unfamiliar territory; when their boat crashes, on the coast of Alba in a horrific storm. They're pursued by mercenaries, sent after them by the King of Alba, as they try to make their way to a Viking settlement. They also, unintentionally, kidnap the King's daughter (Murphy). Things become very violent, quickly.

The movie has some cool action scenes; especially considering the budget, and weak storyline. The performances aren't bad either; the directing is decent and the film looks great. If Fah had just had a better script to work with (I blame Bauer and Zach), this could have been a thrilling action flick. I really wanted to like the characters, thanks to the actors, but had no reason to. I also could not get into the story, or what was going on at all, despite cool fight scenes and decent thrills. There's definitely reasons to like things about this film; but it's mostly a miss and mediocre.

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During a storm, a Viking vessel sinks and the survivors are stranded on the coast of Scotland. They climb a cliff and are attacked by an army; however they defeat the enemy but one of them escapes. They find a noble woman, Inghean (Charlie Murphy), and the leader of the Vikings Asbjorn (Tom Hopper) decides to keep her to get a ransom to go to the Viking settlement Danelagh. They stumble with the Christian monk Conall (Ryan Kwanten) that helps them. Meanwhile the escapee reaches his kingdom and the king sends a group of cruel mercenaries under the command of Hjorr (Ed Skrein) and his henchman Bovarr (Anatole Taubman) to hunt the Vikings down. But Hjorr and Bovarr actually intend to kill Inghean and when they reach the Vikings, Inghean learns the true intention of Hjorr and feels that her only chance to survive is to team up with Asbjorn and his warriors.

"Northmen - A Viking Saga" is a highly entertaining adventure, with a full of action story, charismatic characters and great villains. The direction is tight, the cast has good performance and the fight choreography, locations, costumes, and special effects are excellent. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Northmen - A Viking Saga"

Sometimes the simple things seem to be the most difficult. Like finding your way back home. Then again, even with all the transportation possibilities today some have issues reaching their goal, let alone back when this movie is supposedly playing. It's a decent effort into the viking territory and it has the flair of movies from the 80s, when a group/handful of guys were trying to reach a destination or just try to stay alive.

The effects are good, the camera is nice (copying the middle land moves we've learned to love from Peter Jackson, relishing on sights and so forth), the acting is OK too, considering the genre this is playing at and all the clichés involved. It won't be hard to guess what will be coming up most of the time, mixing a lot of known and working formulas, this is a pleasant time waster ...

I watched Northmen in a sneak preview in a German cinema, so please don't wonder at my language skills.

I really like such epic movies so i had great expectations. The characters are distinguishable and the main actor has the necessary charisma. The plot is easy, so don't expect to much ! Thats the only thing what i dislike about the movie.

The cinematography and the high-resolution graphics with great recordings from swiss and south African landscape create a heated atmosphere.

Especially the character of a monk is well acted.

All in all the movie is no must see because of the simple story, but the distincitv characters, the good recordings of the landscape, and well acted fighting scenes make the movie to a Sunday evening activity.

running. fights. vikings. and a last scene who impose a prequel. not surprising but decent and this could be a real good point. because it respects expectations of its public. an action film in clothes of history. inspired but the series Vikings. using, in not bad manner, a lot of clichés. remembering Lord of Ring in few scenes. and being an interesting try to propose not a new story but a decent exercise to tell it. all is well known. but the desire to be more than one of many action movies , proposing a story of survive, friendship and crumbs of faiths is a nice option. and the acting, far to be impressive, is not real bad. in essence, a correct cake respecting , in each detail, the recipes of genre. and the flavor of fairy tale, and the references to Odyssey are virtues for a film about vikings and theirs adventures in foreign land. only strange fact - maybe the title . but the new parts of a possible trilogy could save appearances.

"Northmen: A Viking Saga" does offer some good, solid entertainment. And it is a movie that appeals mostly to a male audience. And chances are that if you like the "Vikings" series, then you would also find enjoyment in "Northmen: A Viking Saga".

However, the story, albeit straight forward and very simplistic, offers very little in terms of layering a profound movie experience. Why? Well, because the storyline was just too simple, truth be told. The movie is about a group of marooned vikings washed ashore and having to get from point A to point B in order to reach a safe haven. And the path between points A and B is a perilous one, of course.

What works very well in the movie is the fighting and action sequences, as they are nicely choreographed and equally nicely executed on the screen. But also the costumes and outfits were working well in favor of the movie, because they had a very authentic feel to them. And the environment where the movie was filmed also added a great deal of enjoyment to the movie.

The characters in the movie were nicely detailed, although most of them were very generic in terms of what has previously been seen in the viking movie genre. That being said, don't get me wrong, because the people cast to portray the characters did good jobs with their characters, despite not having the most elaborate of scripts to work with. And while the soothsayer character was indeed interesting, it just seemed a bit out of place, with those supernatural powers, as it turned the movie into a fantasy movie, and not really adhering to the reality of the age in which the movie was taking place. A good or bad thing? Well, I did enjoy it, as it was nicely done. But had they opted for something else, then the movie would have had a whole other atmosphere to it. And also the monk character was somewhat of a sore thumb, especially since he was apparently so much more martially trained than everyone else. It just seemed a bit out of place.

"Northmen: A Viking Saga" is an enjoyable movie for sure. Just don't expect anything extraordinary. And while it is not fully up to the level of the "Vikings" series, then it is still a good addition to the viking movie genre.

Asbjorn and his Viking men are stranded in Scotland after losing their boat. They encounter a band of soldiers transporting princess Inghean to her wedding. After a fierce battle, they take her hostage. She has special powers of perception. King Dunchaid sends his men after them. They find a Christian monk who could guide them home.

It's a lower budget action adventure. It has no big names. The production and CGI is lower level. It's a rather simple chase fight movie. The plot does take a few questionable turns. It needs work to make it more exciting and the characters more compelling. The lead has limited charisma. This has some watch-ability value but not great even as a B movie.

Excellent cinematography and great cast elevate this well above the usual fair. The performances are strong throughout and Tom Hopper is a great leading man in the style of Chris Hemsworth. Overall a very good adventure movie directed with great flair by Claudio Fah. Looks like a much bigger budget than it was. Fight scenes handled with confidence. The production values were consistently high class, with notable scenes in forests, caves and swamps all looking suitably authentic and not remotely TV standard like so many other things. Comparisons to the TV show seem unfair as this stands on its own merits as a story. The TV show often feels padded and stretched whereas this moves at a good pace and doesn't outstay its welcome.

Fairly elaborate Viking adventure but without historical perspective , packing bloody action , emotion , drama, brief romance and overwhelming battles . Norse Opera dealing with a group of Vikings : Tom Hopper, James Norton, Ken Dunken, among others, are shipwrecked at the Scotland coast, then a panicked race begins . There they meet a princess : Charlie Murphy, about to marry , as well as a Catholic priest, Ryan Kwanten, with real fighting skills. Then they are relentlessly pursued by an army of local warriors : Ed Skrein, Anatole Taubman, who will stop at nothing to kill them. The losers will pay with their lives. There's no time to bleed. In exile a hero will rise.

Viking adventure full of noisy action, thrills, chills, visceral violence, sword-play and impressive battles. A well-done in comic-book level costume adventure with non-stop action from start to finish , resulting to be entertaining enough . It contains unstoppable action with merciless fights and chases with no rest, in which the small bunch of Vikings are attacked, assaulted, besieged at a tower and ultimately surrounded next to a cliff. The flick being played by a good cast of notorious actors as Tom Hopper, Ryan Kwanten, James Norton, Ed Skrein, and only woman : Charlie Murphy, all of them are pretty well. The motion picture was competently directed by Claudio Fah at his best . This filmmaker is a craftsman expert on sequels , such as : Hollow Man 2 , Sniper : Ultimate Kill ,Sniper : Reloaded , Beyond Valkyrie , among others.

This basic epic costumer belongs to Viking subgenre that was especially successful in the Sixties , there are various films such as : the classic The Vikings 1958 with Kirk Douglas , Tony Curtis , Janet Leigh . The long Shipts by Jack Cardiff with Richard Widmark , Sidney Poitier . The Last of the Vikings 1961 by Mario Bava with Edmund Purdom, George Ardisson . Knives of the Avenger 1966 by Mario Bava with Cameron Mitchell , Fausto Tozzi . The Norsemen 1978 by Charles B Pierce with Cornel Wilde , Mel Ferrer . The Viking Queen 1966 by Don Chaffey with Don Murray , Andrew Keir . The Viking Sagas 1995 by Michael Chapman with Ralph Moeller , Steve Ole Thorsen. The 13th Warrior 1999 by John McTiernan with Antonio Banderas , Diane Venora, Tony Curran, Omar Shariff , among others .

Is it Great? Nope, but way better than average. A very pleasant surprise to be sure. Above average plot. Decent enough acting. But the cinematography is first rate! It is quite gritty. Some of the panorama scenes are definitely less than stellar, but more than adequate. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and have watched it several times. T reminds meof an "old fashioned" adventure from the golden era of movie-making.

I have a bunch of DVD & Blu-ray over Vikings saga, those brave warriors quite often didn't upset me, this is another fine picture made on location in South Africa is an above average production, without those countless special effects on blue screen, here l really noticed just a few, the cave shooting is real, waterfall and many wide open places in fact matching with Scotland were the story happens, althought the casting are practically unknown, they made a decent job, weren't in the same level of the series Vikings of course, but it a easy amusement in this small size scale that won't regret the true movie lovers!!

Resume:

First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: Blu-ray / Rating: 7

High production values and a very good cast make this a movie that I watched several times and will again. This is not a ripoff of any tv series and feels more like a d&d adventure w/fantasy elements. Sure, there are unbelievable items but no more than any other movie so such criticism is silly. The Vikings are the heroic figures in this tale and there is a fighting monk who joins them. Several actors did great work here as did the director as this could have been a real dud in lesser hands.

Awful film, terrible acting, every acting cliché you would associate with action films is used and badly at that.

Whilst films of this genre can be enjoyable without any factual basis, a good story line is required to provide the entertainment. The story in this film is very basic and seems to consist of creating opportunities for the villains to act really evil or the heroes to make silly monologues about their past or how they should have died in a recent battle (they also stare into space for speeches). You won't believe the conviction of the actors at all....the acting really is awful.

I would have liked to mention that there was at least one good point, but honestly I can't think of one, the special effects are limited to one scene, the fight scenes are bizarre, maybe one good point, there is a spectacular scene at the very end of the film of coastal cliffs and rough seas.

I had hoped for so much better! This was an appalling film...hammy sets, dreadful innaccuracies both in costume and setting. Meant to be in Scotland (I am Scottish) and I have never seen such inauthentic locations. Historical facts are dodgey, costumes not good, miss-chosen cast! After seeing such a magnificent interpretation of Viking life in TV series Vikings...this was laughable! SORRY GUYS, but in the UK we are a bit more clued up about it - it happened to us! This film was an insult to Scandinavian Vikings and Scots alike! I have travelled extensively between Denmark and Sweden to research viking history which is very much intermingled with Scottish culture - how can you get it so wrong? Where were the locations? Not Dcotlsnd and that is obvious!!! Wanted to like this - complete rubbish!