The Northman Cometh, and he’s got an axe to grind

By Katherine Monk

Grab yer loin cloth and flex those abs. It’s a macho, macho, macho man fest in this cold take on Norse warriors and tribal warfare. Perhaps looking to create something “realistic” in tone, The Northmen offers up a depiction of humanity before we were, arguably, ’civilized.’

We meet a tribe and its ‘royal’ family — lead by Ethan Hawke and Nicole Kidman. They have a son, destined to be king, but just as the father returns from battle to reclaim his throne and teach his son the ways of leadership, he is killed by his own brother. The boy escapes, and from that moment, decides his life will be dedicated to vengeance.

Before you can recite Arya Stark’s deathlist, we flash forward to watching Alexander Skarsgard make his way among a new tribe — lead by a wild Willem Dafoe. As the young man closes in on his ultimate goal, he is faced with his own choices and his own conflict of allegiance.

Skarsgard’s physicality — his stature, combined with bulging muscles and piercing blue eyes — make him a highly believable Norse hero, but there isn’t all that much for him to really do beyond graphic beheadings and long pathos-laden stares into the lens.

There’s not a lot of room for subtlety when most problems are solved by bludgeoning and dismemberment, but you can tell the cast is desperate to bring every nuance possible to this broad-strokes study of our stubborn primitivism.

Skarsgard’s physicality — his stature, combined with bulging muscles and piercing blue eyes — make him a highly believable Norse hero, but there isn’t all that much for him to really do beyond graphic beheadings and long pathos-laden stares into the lens.

Perhaps if The Northman wasn’t clocking in at over two hours, all the blood and mud and battle choreography would have felt like a fraternal reunion with Gerry Butler and the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae. But it not only feels long, it borders on laborious.

The movie takes us prisoner with its promise of eventual justice, then holds our sympathy ransom as we watch our young hero try to make things right by murdering the man who killed his father. It’s the plot of Lion King delivered without song, humour or anything remotely cute. In other words, it’s Hamlet before Denmark: all the rot, without the beauty of language. 

@katherinemonk

THE EX-PRESS, May 7, 2022

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