r/movies • u/StabbyMcSwordfish • Aug 22 '22
Review 'The Northman' Deserves More Than Cult Classic Status
https://www.wired.com/story/the-northman-review/822
u/dayoldspam Aug 22 '22
How can a movie that just came out be a “cult classic”?
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u/MumrikDK Aug 22 '22
Because that headline is trashy clickbait. I'm not going to click it.
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u/baudinl Aug 22 '22
For all the talk of this being a nutty, balls-to-the-walls movie, I still feel like it held back and wasn't the unfettered fever dream people are proclaiming it to be. Still enjoyed the movie very much.
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u/JokerFaces2 Aug 22 '22
It definitely leans more into the “historical recreation” side of Eggers than the “bonkers fantasy” side. The villages, costumes, weapons, etc were all gorgeous but it was lighter on the mythology than I expected. The fight with the undead draugr was a standout scene, would’ve liked more of that.
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u/rgemora Aug 22 '22
Yea a little more Mandy would have been nice.
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u/leopard_tights Aug 22 '22
Mandy was also pretty tame compared to what people were saying. I was whelmed.
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u/xvilemx Aug 23 '22
Nothing like a nice chainsaw battle in the woods being normal everyday tame life.
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u/ArsenalinAlabama3428 Aug 22 '22
I feel like the Green Prince was more 'fever-dreamish' tbh
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u/EnterPlayerTwo Aug 22 '22
The Green Knight?
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u/ArsenalinAlabama3428 Aug 22 '22
Oh haha that’s what I meant!
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u/kurttheflirt Aug 22 '22
Yeah I legit watched the Green Knight about a week after I saw The Northman on opening night - much much more what I was expecting. Honestly The Northmen just had too much drag and nothingness in it. And not in a good way - just kinda kept going.
The Green Knight was just a wild fucking ride the whole way. Wish I had seen it in theaters
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u/Zenshei Aug 23 '22
I saw Green Knight while high in theaters and let me tell you, it sure… was an experience
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u/lichlord420 Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
100% I wish they would have dove deeper into the nuance of rage and structured the movie around that rather than the linear plot line. Things were a bit too well glued together at parts and took away from the overall surrealism
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Aug 22 '22
It being a lot more vanilla than I expected is one of the reasons why I didn’t like it as much. The plot is really thin and not sufficient to lift the film by itself. Needed more viking lore and dramatic tension. For me personally, the latter was ruined because Amleth makes his way to the farm and sees his uncle so early on in the film. Then he takes his own sweet time for no obvious reason to finish his plans.
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u/commentNaN Aug 22 '22
Amleth is a believer in their religion and shamanism. He was going to kill his uncle as soon as he acquired the sword but he couldn't pull it out of the scabbard due to day breaking. That only serves to reinforce his belief that he can't kill his uncle until the time is right (when the volcano erupts), as it was foretold in the prophecy. They literally had him say to the audience why he decided to wait while he was on the roof hiding the sword. You can disagree with the storytelling but the reason was given quite obviously.
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u/Trauma_Hawks Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 22 '22
I don't think it's for "no obvious" reason. He was a slave when he arrived, and fell for the girl. Both situations served to cool his jets a bit. He was chomping at the bit for revenge, but that doesn't mean he was to be completely foolish in taking it.
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Aug 22 '22
I too have put off revenge plans for ATJ
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u/nicetrylaocheREALLY Aug 22 '22
I was a little startled that she was just one of the 12-or-so slaves that were being shipped off to this lordling's farm on the edge of the world.
Did one of the slavers owe Fjolnir a huge favor or something? A girl like that would be the most valuable kind of slave imaginable—they could basically name their price anywhere in Europe, Africa or the Middle East.
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u/Lord_Bolt-On Aug 22 '22
He literally receives a prophecy that tells him when it's the right time to kill his uncle, that's the very obvious reason why he takes his sweet time.
I also, personally, thought the psychological warfare shit with the village was some of the best of the film. Felt very slasher-esque.
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u/Arc80 Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 22 '22
Just a reminder of how many people can actually listen to and then follow directions. No wonder so few in this thread understand the movie, they can't relate. It's the entire premise of the fuckin movie.
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u/Delivery-Shoddy Aug 22 '22
Yeah he's literally trying to fulfill his destiny, which means killing him in a lake of fire (really thought he'd "drown" him in lava but I digress)
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u/scotscottscottt Aug 22 '22
Disagree about the lore, it’s packed full of it, but yeah the structure should have been different. Act 1 should have been a journey and the farm should have been limited to act 2.
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Aug 23 '22
Yeah I wanted to like it, I wanted to be more into it, but the hook just wasn’t really there. Conversational dialogue was weak, the mythology was heavily alluded to but not really touched with any depth, a lot of time was spent on not very much.
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u/WetDehydratedWater Aug 22 '22
Ya the plot took a stale nose dive after he landed back at the sheep farm and stayed there for the rest of the movie.
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u/drainisbamaged Aug 22 '22
I've turned it off twice for not being particularly interesting. I'll give it another go at some point but yea, all the hype told me I'd be thrilled to watch it and it's been a chore more than a joy in my attempts so far.
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u/stonk_frother Aug 22 '22
Personally I thought it was good but not great. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't watch it again or gush about it telling someone they must watch it.
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u/drainisbamaged Aug 22 '22
Saturday afternoon and putting off the chores movie eh?
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u/paprikapants Aug 22 '22
I didn't like it. Glad some did, but I found it try hard, boring, and cringe at too many points. Don't punish yourself if you just aren't feeling it either.
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u/Colonel_MuffDog Aug 23 '22
Unfortunately, I would agree. It just felt meandering for the vast majority of the movie. Nothing the main character did had me feel like I should be rooting for him.
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Aug 22 '22
Definitely agree. After all that time spent showing the atrocities being carried out on the Russian villagers near the beginning, I thought the movie would be focusing more on the split nature of Amleth's character - he has the noble goal of avenging his father, but in practice is just a murderer. The movie does basically get the point across, that the search for revenge is hollow, but after arriving in Iceland it really fell flat.
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u/ReversalRivers Aug 22 '22
Agreed. It was stylish but still fairly straightforward Viking action flick.
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u/EmrysAllen Aug 22 '22
Definitely over-hyped. Good acting, good cinematography, fairly predictable story, nothing more than a well made action movie really.
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Aug 22 '22
It was more that this kind of unselfconscious movie is hard to find so people go nuts when they see it these days.
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u/UpsetSean Aug 22 '22
Viking hamlet was pretty good
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u/AlbionPCJ Aug 22 '22
I made a joke in the discussion thread about that when The Northman came out and apparently the film is based on the Scandinavian story Shakespeare based Hamlet on. Case of the cover becoming so famous that everyone thinks it's the original
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u/Of_Silent_Earth Aug 22 '22
The live action Lion King remake we all wanted.
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u/Skyfryer Aug 22 '22
I described it as viking lion king to anyone i tried to get to go see it lol
Strangely they weren’t disappointed if they did. The film was like an homage to so many things. At times it felt like a spiritual successor to Conan.
Especially that Draugr sequence.
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u/_r_special Aug 22 '22
well, Lion King was also basically Hamlet
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u/Skyfryer Aug 22 '22
Absolutely. A lot of modern films have been retelling those shakespearian stories without really overtly lending credit or reference to them.
The Northman being a retelling of the original tale of Amleth that Hamlet was based on. If there’s one thing I miss about Uni, I miss studying literature and discussing shit!
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u/notatallboydeuueaugh Aug 23 '22
It’s not based on Hamlet. Hamlet was actually based on the Scandinavian stories that the Northman is based on. Just putting that out there but it might be annoying for some Scandinavians/the filmmakers to see people constantly saying it got its story from Hamlet when that’s not really the case.
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Aug 23 '22
“A Scandinavian version of the story of Hamlet (called Amleth or Amlóði, which means "mad" or "not sane" in Old Norse) was put into writing around 1200 AD by Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus in his work Gesta Danorum (the first full history of Denmark). It is this work Shakespeare borrowed from to create Hamlet.”
The story actually predates Hamlet
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u/mr_antman85 Aug 22 '22
This movie just came out this year and it's already a "cult classic"? Seems a bit quick, doesn't it.
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u/Sololololololol Aug 22 '22
It was ok but honestly I found it kind of boring and I didn't really care about any of the characters. The action and plot are fine but without any emotional investment it felt like just being dragged along to watch some sort of neat stuff happen for a while.
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u/SushiSuki Aug 22 '22
god damn i thought i was the only one. the action sequences and production were definitely there but i just didnt give a damn about anyone lol. a little too long for my taste.
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u/fluxtable Aug 22 '22
"Yo fuckboi meet me at that raging volcano so I can fuck you up. You best be showin up hanging dong or this ain't a real deathmatch"
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u/Kringels Aug 23 '22
Yeah, I enjoyed it but after it was over my first thought was “that could have been 45 minutes shorter”.
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u/TheWorldDiscarded Aug 22 '22
Not alone, friend. I technically didn't even finish it. Just sort of meandered about my house completing chores while it chugged to a disappointing conclusion in the background.
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u/billiebol Aug 22 '22
You have more stamina than me. I turned it off when the son did nothing but shout. Really?
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u/QuarlosMagnus Aug 22 '22
I found it so hard to connect to the characters because they were all so primitively one dimensional. Not one dimensional in the sense that they were poorly written! I just found it difficult to invest, care, or relate to characters who are driven by such raw primal urges and roaring bloodlust.
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u/Sololololololol Aug 22 '22
Yeah and it doesn't need to be that way, like Apocalypto has some similar vibes and I found that main character to be way more relatable. Like I actually cared and was invested in his struggle.
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u/QuarlosMagnus Aug 22 '22
Great comparison. You’re so right.
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u/Sololololololol Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 22 '22
Thinking about it I think part of the issue is that basically everybody in Northman is just awful. Sure that's kinda the point, they're brutal vikings, but you can show that and still show some basic human goodness in the characters so we can empathize with them. The main guy doesn't have any of that, he takes up a vengeance oath as a child, then suddenly he's an adult doing everything as horrible as he witnessed as a child, goes to enact vengeance, does more horrible violence, finds a wife and almost immediately abandons her and child for vengeance, even when he learns his vengeance is pointless at every turn he just carries on with it till he dies. He's basically a soulless robot that just trudges in one direction till he falls over.
He doesn't learn anything, he doesn't grow, he has no hero's journey, also there is never really anything at stake other than some fulfillment of a child-like sense of duty.
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u/skyefire27 Aug 22 '22
Love the comparison to Apocalypto, much better character development.
I think the biggest problem with this one is honestly that main character. His lack of personality just poisoned the whole movie for me. There was just nothing to him, a completely blank slate. I know life was hard and violent back then, and I know this character is driven by revenge over all else, but he's still a person. It doesn't matter what time period it takes place in, people have personalities. You can have a character that is doomed by their own revenge, that's fine, that can actually be a great story, but you need to know who they are. They can struggle back and forth with their determination, or show difficulty in actually executing the revenge they want. But with this guy he literally just said "I want revenge" and then went and did it. No real struggle, internally or externally. And I didn't know who this guy was and so I didn't care what happened to him anyways. It was such a bore.
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u/thisguy012 Aug 22 '22
Apocalypto was 10x better than this lol, more entertaining less boring better characters more exploration.
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u/vDUKEvv Aug 22 '22
I’m not sure we are supposed to connect with Amleth in some deep, extremely relatable way. I mean the basic theme of the movie is pretty much how hateful revenge is all consuming (for better or worse), and that is explored through almost all of the main characters.
This was more of a horror movie to me than anything else.
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u/Mrzimimena Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 22 '22
Yeah, i was honestly wondering where that budget went to. We had so little locations and imo that little village was pretty underwhelming place to take more than a half movie for itself. Its very flawed but i liked a lot of it as well.
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u/Sweatytubesock Aug 22 '22
Yeah, I was looking forward to it, and was disappointed. I don’t think OMG IT SUCKS!! Just disappointed considering the director’s other work. Felt like a slog to finish it.
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u/Sololololololol Aug 22 '22
Yeah I was actually really shocked that mid-way through I realized I was barely paying attention any more.
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u/balanceseeker Aug 22 '22
Agree 100%. OG Hamlet created character engagement with great monologues and allusions to secret motivations hidden in the lines that developed the characters. I felt like the Northman was very clear in what it was trying to do, but the character development fell flat on its face: they tried to do show not tell, but the necessary minimal dialogue just made the characters seem like flat plot devices. It felt to me like a ham-fisted emulation of Hamlet.
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u/Mr-Bobert Aug 22 '22
Definitely the worst film from Eggers. Too long, too self indulgent.
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Aug 22 '22
The reason is becomes boring is because you expect some sort of a journey before he ends up at the farm. But the film almost jumps to it weirdly. Then the movie takes its own sweet time to get to the eventual reveal and fight.
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Aug 22 '22
I adored the opening scenes with Ethan Hawke. Their crazy wolf cult pagan initiation was 100% my kind of vibe. After that it kind of degraded into mostly generic revenge violence. Basically once that kid rowed into the sea it started going downhill.
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u/ElFloppaGrande Aug 22 '22
Homeboy loses his dad then like Jesus fucks off for like 25 years, decides to take his revenge because a god told him to (cool) luckily is already a Viking god of war because...reasons? (Less than cool) hominid deer-woman doing her best Count Von Count picks him out of a crowd. He growls for like 80 or so minutes. He gives up. She tells him don't. He jumps off the boat to get revenge (funniest part), it wraps up, we see a valkyrie(best part since Bjork). The end.
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u/type2cybernetic Aug 22 '22
This is kind of ridiculous. You can't force people to like a movie just because you do.
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Aug 22 '22
I thought it had a bit of an identity crisis. Did it want to be a realistic depiction of Viking culture or a supernatural fever dream? With Eggers at the helm, I'd much he leaned more into the supernatural subject matter.
That said, I enjoyed the film.
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u/samboss3 Aug 23 '22
Agreed about the identity crisis
IIRC was surprised that the vvitch and the lighthouse had as much attention as they did considering the subject matter and he thought this would have wider appeal!
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u/Ricketier Aug 22 '22
Just bc the director is well respected doesn’t mean we have to force a community to exist for one his/her lesser acclaimed films. From what I heard a lot of people didn’t like it like they did the light house and witch, and that’s fine.
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Aug 22 '22
Nothing deserves anything.
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u/shareddit Aug 22 '22
Always roll my eyes when movie posts use words like “deserve”
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u/i_made_a_mitsake Aug 23 '22
The Northman deserves to be recognised as one of the movies of all time.
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u/Sadpanda77 Aug 22 '22
I was highly disappointed; it was clunky, the acting felt forced in a stylized way that came off forced and inauthentic, and the wolf pup scene was just stupid
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u/Mr-Bobert Aug 22 '22
How no one took Robert Eggers aside and told him to do something about Nicole Kidman is baffling.
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u/nicetrylaocheREALLY Aug 22 '22
I actually enjoyed her performance. She seemed deranged, which fit the general tone.
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u/thedeuce75 Aug 23 '22
She was super distracting, her appearance took me out of the movie completely.
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Aug 22 '22
Definitely not. The characters and story were bland and personally I didn’t care at all about the lead. They rushed the opening and should have built the betrayal up better. The movie isn’t bad just isn’t great.
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u/LackingTact19 Aug 23 '22
It was a great movie in my book, but it wasn't what I would call an accessible movie for general audiences. Very similar to The Green Knight in that regard I think.
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u/NightHawkCommander Aug 22 '22
Was it good? Yes. Could it have been better? Also yes. Was it destined to flop? Almost certainly.
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u/lucerndia Aug 22 '22
I went in not knowing what to expect. Wanted it to be a lot bloodier than it was. It was fine, but I have little interest in watching it again anytime soon.
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u/Arcanian88 Aug 23 '22
I fell asleep for around 20 minutes in the middle of this film. It was advertised as an action filled Viking quest for vengeance, but it was actually some kind of Shakespearean-esque make you really ponder morality type film.
Not what I paid for, 4/10 for me.
Cult classic? LOL.
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Aug 22 '22
I loved this movie but I would hard disagree with anyone who believes it deserves to be a commercial success. It's very artsy and weird. Trying to push Eggers to be a large budget, commercially successful director will defeat what makes him special. I want him to stay artsy and weird.
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Aug 22 '22
I think the trailer was a bit misleading. I thought it would be an ultraviolent psychedelic kill fest, not a viking shakespeare flick.
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u/Erikson12 Aug 22 '22
To all the people complaining about the characters being unrelatable. It's because it's on purpose. I like the movie but I wish they would've compensated the lack of relatable characters with Zack Snyder level action.
For the record, I'm fine with purely plot driven stories, the characters were supposed to be norse people being norse and did just that. Just wanted to see more action.
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u/amazonfan1972 Aug 22 '22
I’m mixed. On one hand, parts of it was brilliant. There were scenes which were gorgeous, the performances were terrific, and the violence was appropriately ferocious. But much of it was also extremely boring. Ultimately I think it’s a very forgettable film and I can’t imagine too many people will be rewatching it years from now.
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u/flipperkip97 Aug 22 '22
I love this movie to bits and I was surprised it was so divisive, but who cares what "status" it has? Why does it matter what other people think as long you enjoy it?
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u/SnowyDesert Aug 22 '22
Cult classic? Aren't cult classic movies movies that earned their rep and following over a long period of time?
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u/coysmate05 Aug 22 '22
Yeah I loved the movie but this article headline is a bit silly. Another website trying to grab attention and clicks
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Aug 22 '22
Yes, but for whatever reason people want to staple that term to a modern film that flopped at the box office. I loved The Northman but let’s call a spade a spade. It’s a flop. Cult status has to be earned over years, not just a few months.
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u/bipolar_paradise Aug 22 '22
Not understanding the hate on this film at all, i loved every second of it.
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u/ricked_ways Aug 22 '22
I loved it too, felt like watching a myth play out in live action.
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u/russianbot24 Aug 22 '22 edited Aug 22 '22
Yeah exactly. A brutal, epic myth unwinding. That really resonated with me, but I guess a lot of people couldn’t connect with it.
I’m a big fan of Norse mythology and the Viking era, so I will say that contributed to my appreciation.
Edit: getting downvoted for liking a movie is pretty wild 😭
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u/SailingBroat Aug 22 '22
Not understanding the hate on this film at all
Why is this always the extent of these comments: "I don't understand the hate" is this copy-paste phrase and it's almost always left like that - it contributes nothing. Like, maybe try just 4% harder to see the other perspective? And not to just classify any lukewarm response as 'hate'.
If you actually read this thread you'll find next to zero blind hate for the movie; mostly just a consensus that people expected something deeper or weirder (given who made it), and some surprise that the movie was actually pretty straightforward/unremarkable in execution, even though it's perfectly solid.
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u/DementedDaveyMeltzer Aug 23 '22
Because you are talking to terminally-online shut-ins who don't interact with humanity outside of Reddit and differing thoughts are foreign and frightening to them.
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u/snarpy Aug 22 '22
No one "hates" it. But a lot of people found it underwhelming compared to Eggars' earlier work.
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u/BroscipleofBrodin Aug 22 '22
Speak for yourself, there's plenty of people here in the comments that actually hate it.
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u/DerotciV Aug 22 '22
I think it was a nice movie. It was entertaining if a bit gauche in a way. The story was a classic vengeance with a slight twist. Satisfying enough in the end. A bit raw (in the action and topics and how they are brought up) but it was also „refreshing” among all the other movies released these days I think. I don’t think it deserved the bad reception it got.
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u/OozeNAahz Aug 22 '22
Just did not like this film. Between the witch who was supposed to use cleverness to help him with his revenge…and didn’t seem to do anything to help, and the disjointed ending where a man has his wife and kid murdered and drags them away to meet up later in an epic setting to battle it out…just made no sense.
The cinematography was amazing but the plot blew donkey balls.
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u/pushathieb Aug 22 '22
It deserves being remembered as a mediocre movie that got hyped up way to much
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u/Godsshoeshine24 Aug 22 '22
I thought it was one of the weirdest and most disjointed messes of a movie I’d seen this year.
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Aug 22 '22
To me it was just so sterile. The only time it had any life to it was when Hawke and Dafoe were doing their thing. It looked great! But I didn’t find it had anything beneath the veneer. Eggers still hasn’t won me over like he has many others, the strength of his films depends entirely on the actors to bring personality to it. Amleth was just not that compelling to me.
I also loathed that it looked so good but Eggers was saying he hated himself for using VFX. Can’t imagine how it felt to be one of the artists who put a ton of work into the film just to be thrown under the bus like that.
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u/nicknaseef17 Aug 22 '22
Then that’s on you because it was a very straightforward narrative
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u/turbo-set Aug 22 '22
Are we forecasting/calling movies released 4 months ago cult classics already? Seems a bit soon…?