A Great Adventure Move: Easily the best Viking movie ever made.

Rating: 10/10 (4 September 2018)

This is the film version of Michael Criton's book, "The Eaters of the Dead. It is a superb adventure movie, perfectly cast and beautifully directed. Antonio Banderas is very good as the Arab diplomat, that comes to live amongst the Vikings and adopt many of their ways. Vladimir Kulich is perfect as the Viking King without a Kingdom who leads the band of 13. But Dennis Storhoi steals every scene he is in. He is excellent, with a deft balance of drama and humor in his performance.
I love the way the Vikings are depicted in this movie, not as mindless brutes, but as extremely intelligent, calculating, warriors. The directing is superb, I particularly liked the way the director showed how Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan learned the Viking tongue by listening through a series of transition scenes around the evening camp fire as the Vikings traveled to their destination. The battle scenes could not be better, extremely violent, but not excessively gory (well maybe a little excessive). Even the musical score is very well done, capturing the strength and high adventure of the Vikings. If you enjoy movies like Zulu, the Warlord, Lord of the Rings, you will move this movie.