Decent medieval brawl

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2010)

Antonio Banderas plays an Arab in this movie, which isn't nearly as weird as I expected it to be. It's kind of a stretch to see him call one of his companions "a pig-eating son of a whore", but even that was sorta believable. As for the rest of the film, it's good without really being anything special. A bunch of angry Vikings try to defend their town, and figure the best way to do that is to get some help from Antonio Banderas. The battles look really nice, they're filled with an epic atmosphere and heroic imagery. Since most of the movie is made up from battles, it's pretty entertaining. One does wonder if it was really worth the massive budget (around 100 million, apparently) though, because it's not exactly film history that's written here. In fact, it's not even close to being the best movie in its genre. Still liked it though.