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Review:Recap: According to legend, the Valkyrie Brunhilda defied Odin and was chained to a rock surrounded by an eternal fire. Only a warrior pure in heart can pass through the flames, free Brunhilda and release her from Odin's claim, and have her for himself. Now, war is brewing in the Norse lands, and the King needs an alliance with the Berserkers. The Berserkers are warriors claimed by Odin's valkyries, lusting for war, blood and flesh, and therefore outcasts, but superior in battle. The leader of the Berserkers is a scorned son of the King, Boar, and his price for the alliance is his brother, the future king, Barek. But after the King is victorious in battle, he refuses to give up his only remaining son, breaking his oath to Boar and betray him and kill him. Boar is saved only by Barek's call upon Odin. But this is only the start of the battle between the brothers, and their final battle is about to start now, a millennia later...

Comments: I had hopes that this would be a movie based upon some Viking ground, far too little quality movie about Viking has been done. It started out very good too, with detailed longships and armors, nice and fitting sceneries and an OK battle.

The foundation in the Aesir myths is thin and seems very corrupted to me. Odin is much more vengeful, spiteful and absent than I remind him from school, and the valkyries has been turned into some vampire-demons. I'm no expert, but that seems outright wrong.

But the fatal mistake made by this movie is to move the time-setting from the original time-period to today. If the two brothers had fought it out in the correct time, with some decent battles, this movie would have been much better. Now the setting, suddenly is changed to present day Stockholm. Still, Odin is present and is sending Boar and his berserkers for Brunhilda and Barek which gives silly scenes when armor-clad and painted berserkers swordfights with Barek among the industries. Beautiful mountains and woods have been exchanged for cement. And when allowed to focus upon single fights, instead of massive battles as in the beginning, I quickly saw that the fights and skills of the actors are slow and clumsy.

The end result is thin story, sometimes hard to follow and other times just silly, and the only that could save it, the action, is drawn from slow, dull and clumsy swordfights. It draws very little from Aesir myth or Viking tradition. Thus both story and action fails, and the movie is just plain bad.

Finally, as a Swede, this movie is a little confusing. Supposedly filmed entirely in South Africa, it still contains some familiar Swedish signs, plates and what seems to be an authentic police car. However, the effort is poor and only goes so far, as to really set it in Sweden. No names are Swedish (perhaps with Anya as the exception), no familiar sceneries are Swedish, they (supposedly) speak a little (ancient?) Norwegian, not Swedish. And uniforms, both police and medical, are clearly not Swedish. If they were not going to even try to do it correctly - and really give the illusion that it is set in Sweden, why bother at all?

4/10
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A: negative

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Review:This film is an entertaining, fun and quality film. The film very cleverly follows the guidelines if the book, and tries to stick to the exact lines. The actors are all suitable, and you would expect them to be the part. They use some famous actors which give a great effect on the film. The graphics is a bit dodgy in some parts, and there are quite a few mistakes throughout the film. There is no such thing as a Yellow Spotted Lizard, for example. The camp is not as gruesome as explained in the book, and they tend not to show the goings on in the camp as much as the book. All of his group are mentioned a lot in the book, but are not in the film. Overall, a great film for a rainy afternoon
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A: positive

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Review:You'd be forgiven to think a Finnish director from Helsinki would be no good at directing an American horror movie (especially one entirely located inside a US prison) - see this to prove yourself wrong! It was produced in the 80's after all and the film was made on a budget more fitting to a modern DIY company TV advert (something I think anyone would really notice nowadays what with practically everyone being accustomed to $100m+ budgets for action movies unfortunately dominating the industry mind!) being Mr Harlin's first major production and the - at least what nowadays would be considered a stellar - cast. I still think most of the Nordic contribution to the film industry as a whole is more to do with Stellan Stargaard's screen appearances (not mentioning the well overrated Mr(s) Bergman directorial efforts) - at least for all female viewers - but this flick really proves there does exist proper movie talent outside of the US and Hollywood to make us watch a film in suspense. Do try and watch this movie even if you're not a horror puff, IMO it's definitely worth it!
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positive