Posted by Father and son act like dogs before father is murdered and son seeks revenge in this live-action remake of The Lion King
I’m on edge. There’s a darkness overcoming me. Tried to do some gardening to relax myself. Ended up annihilating every plant in sight. That’s right, I killed every single last one of them – seedlings and all. Mrs OddFather wasn’t impressed.
I guess it’s only befitting that I finally get round to reviewing a dark movie I watched weeks ago.
Going into this movie I heard many others refer to this as this era’s Gladiator. That’s a huge statement. Gladiator is one of my favourite movies. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been rather in love with Rome, so there’s a slight bias. But hey – I like what I like.
Firstly, this movie is rather stylised in it’s dark gritty visuals. I prefer the warmer hues of Gladiator, but I guess this is more representative of the Icelandic location. It’s impressively shot, yet I feel like a lot of the action happened just off screen. It kind of reminds me of when you hand your grandma the camera to capture some shots of you and the family, and when you look back you find she’s taken photos of just your shoulder.
What I’m getting at is… I wanted more brutality. If you’re going to make a bloody revenge story set in the first century, you’ve got to make it proper gruesome. Maybe that’s just because we’ve seen the likes of Game of Thrones in recent years which has warped my mind to think that’s the norm. I do wonder, is there a version of this movie that captures the violence which will be released as a director’s cut or something? I’d be surprised if there isn’t.
The pace of the movie is a little on the slow side. It slowly builds up to the act of revenge, but not without its twists which keep you firmly hooked. And what is it with movies I’ve seen recently and awkward kisses. First there was the one featured in Nic Cage’s movie, and now here too. Are these movies out to put us off physical intimacy or something?
On leaving the screening I was thinking about the parallels of this movie to The Lion King. It was only when I spoke to The OddFella later that his link to Hamlet made more sense. It reminded The OddFella of a Shakespeare play and reminded me of a Disney cartoon. That goes to show our different levels of maturity.
That then set me down the path of reading up more about the legend of Amleth (the main character in this movie) – and to my surprise it was the inspiration behind Shakespeare writing Hamlet. Which makes sense in hindsight. Listen – I’m just a bit slow at times, ok? Do you really want to start something given how I’m feeling?
Beyond that, I can’t really remember too much about the movie. It was a bit more mystical than I would have liked. I like my Viking tales more grounded – and gory, I guess.
Verdict
An enjoyable stylised Viking tale which potters along but keeps you hooked. I was more intrigued in the tale of Amleth after reading up about it post-watching this, but I’m going to rate this on my feeling immediately after leaving the cinema.