The Northman 4K Blu-ray Review

[Casimir Harlow]

Violently unforgiving, and relentlessly dark, Robert "The VVitch" Eggers' small scale revenger enjoys bursts of well-staged Berserker brutality, and a LOT of raging, mostly coming from the beast that ate Alexander Skarsgård.
Read the review.

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[Rolph77]

Fantastic achievement of a film.
I will certainly be picking this up at some point this year.

 

[Mr.D]

Massively over rated . Dull characters and literally nothing happens for the middle portion of the film .

Cheap looking overcooked cinematography with some laughable 80s pop promo effects .

 

[Fade In]

After looking forward to this for well over a year (Eggers' grittiness and period authenticity + a violent Viking revenge concept sounded a perfect match on paper), it ended up being a huge disappointment for me.

I've realised after three films, I'm just not an Eggers fan, he routinely underwhelms. He never dials things up to a full 10, he always executes things as a 6 or 7.

The Witch had one of the best trailers I've ever seen but the final film didn't live up to expectations despite nailing the atmospheric dread. The Lighthouse was dull, dreary and odd.

 

[steviedr]

Thanks for the review Cas.

I enjoyed The Witch, really didn’t like The Lighthouse and actually against most opinions enjoyed The Green Knight, so this gives me some hope I may get on with this. Expectations lowered which is always a good thing.
Think I’ll wait for a darker autumn night to get the most out of the oled.

 

[Hampy1972]

Probably the film of the year I would say which will be ignored of course by all major media and award outlets.

We love it! 10/10 for me!

 

[Davyb100]

I haven’t seen The VVitch or The Lighthouse yet but liked Valhalla Rising. I‘ll probably watch the VVitch first (as it’s currently on Netflix) before spending £25 on this one. The Lighthouse doesn’t look to be my sort of thing so I never really tried to see it. A friend of mine watched The Northman at the cinema and is still raving about it so I will definitely watch it at some stage. Thanks for the review Cas.

 

[PlexShaw]

Will definitely be getting this as I thought the film was terrific. Was lucky enough to see it in a Dolby Cinema, which looked and sounded incredible.

 

[FutureShark]

Quite liked The VVitch and The Lighthouse, so given this a pre-order.

However it's only a 15, so surely the 'blood & violence' can't be that strong can it?

 

[PlexShaw]

However it's only a 15, so surely the 'blood & violence' can't be that strong can it?

I'd say that it's at the upper end of what's permissible at 15. I think it's probably the general lack of dwelling on the infliction of pain and injury in the more violent scenes that makes the difference.

 

[NelsonDog]

Underwhelming film.

Anya Taylor-Joy’s accent and Nicole Kidmans face took me out of it.

 

[xar]

Took me 4 separate attempts to finish this. Did nothing for me from start to finish, but no idea as it should have been right up my street. By comparison I enjoyed the lighthouse, so not sure what happened.

 

[Slinkywizard]

It was better than most other attempts at a visceral Viking movie, but hugely underwhelming for me overall. There were a lot of mistakes (his mother's unchanging age between boy and 48 year-old actor is just one of many).

And it all felt rather disjointed, like Eggers couldn't decide whether he wanted a rambunctious action movie or a metaphysical arthouse flick. Sometimes those allusions can work well together, here they clashed, making the movie tonally inconsistent.

I didn't hate it, but it is very flawed. I thought The Green Knight was a much better film. It knew what it was going for — a slower-paced bit of mid-budget arthouse — and hit every note with precision and deftness.

As someone else posted above I actually found it hard to watch in one sitting. The thing that pulled me through was Taylor-Joy's amazing face, but that's honestly no reason to recommend it.

The Northman's not half as clever as it thinks it is, and given too much credit for a philosophical texture largely projected onto it by its audience, when in reality it's terrified the world will see right through it to the vapidness at its core. It's the Jordan Peterson of mud and blood epics.

Movie is a 6/10 for me.

 

[The_Wierd]

Agree it has it flaws and suffers for falling between two camps - too mainstream for the arthouse folks, too arthouse for the mainstream.

Skarsgard, Taylor Joy and most of the supporting cast are great but the facially mutilated Kidman was a terrible choice for a period piece.

I was kind of confused by the accents - when they make a Roman movie they never have everyone speaking with Italian accents, but when they make a Viking picture everyone has to affect a mock Norwegian accent for some reason. It didn't ruin the movie, but I was aware of it especially since some were much better at it than others (Kidman again).

I still liked it a lot though. A good movie not a great one, but gory, a bit bonkers and very entertaining.

 

[howieeb]

Put me in the disappointed crowd. I liked elements of the movie - particularly near the start - then it failed to develop the characters/plot in an interesting way and finally descended into sillyness by the end. The Witch was more consistent, if a little boring, and The Lighthouse was fantastic. So 1 for 3 so far.

 

[milano j]

Dreadful movie Icelandic Cavemen....l streamed it from Amazon...months ago l thought its got too get better soon but stayed at the same pace....but eventually l turned it off waste of £15

 

[jmbrailsford]

We gave it about 15 minutes then turned it off

 

[Tolq]

Very excited to watch this as one of the first movies after we get home from our holidays.

 

[two2midnight]

The village/hamlet/farm being filmed in the same location as used in numerous scenes in Game of Thrones took me out of the movie multiple times. Surely this can't be the only cliff edge type escarpment in Northern Ireland....

Not having pre read any reviews or watched the trailer The Northman wasn't what I was expecting, less The Vikings and more Valhalla Rising, Pathfinder and even The Last Witch Hunter at times. Along with a bit of Star Wars too. Enjoyable though with some nice cinematography at times.

 

[davejones2]

Saw this at the cinema, absolutely hated it. Nearly left after an hour or so.

Enjoyed the last 10-15 mins from an AV point of view though.

 

[Eddie 209]

I watched this last night (via 4K iTunes stream). I'm v glad I did, and I may watch it again. But it's a difficult film to recommend.
I found it less violent than I expected. The pacing is slow. And anyone expecting 'this generations gladiator' is likely to doze off.
Despite all of that, the scenery is stunning, the performances (including accents) I thought were excellent and unbelievably committed. And the most impressive thing was that I really believed that this was a thousand years ago, that human settlements were only a few dozen people. Starvation was one bad harvest away and that a tribal/Viking raid would feel similar to nuclear attack.

So it's quite an experience. But I wouldn't say it's for everyone

 

[Valen]

Sorry Cas, but it was art house pretentious nonsense. Absolutely terrible IMO, but of course, its just my opinion.

 

[La Finta Nonna]

Another good review Cas unfortunately not my cup of PG a vengeance movie done in an art house style with lots of gratuitous shouting. They might as well have used Tears for Fears shout as the score four out of ten for me will have to remember to ignore all of the films by this director

 

[JEZinSHEFF]

Finally watched the 4K disc last night. Really wish I'd caught it in the cinema.

The picture quality is far superior to that of The Batman (which at times looked nothing better than a standard blu-ray).
Never seen The Witch and didn't get on with The Lighthouse but The Northman has knocked Elvis into 2nd place in my favourite films of 2022.

It most reminded me of Justin Kurzel/Michael Fassbender's 'Macbeth' in terms of pacing, brutality and visual style (would love a 4K disc of that film as the blu-ray is up there with the best).

Nothing less than a 10/10 for me. Will be watching it again tomorrow night.

 

[steviedr]

Now I’ve been out off this with all the negative feedback but your @JEZinSHEFF comments just persuaded me to pay some hard cash and finally watch this.
I absolutely loved Macbeth (the Kurzel one, not the Coen one) and totally agree, from a cinematic perspective, it deserves some UHD love !

It most reminded me of Justin Kurzel/Michael Fassbender's 'Macbeth' in terms of pacing, brutality and visual style (would love a 4K disc of that film as the blu-ray is up there with the best).