DVD Release
You know I’ve been hearing a lot of whining about Pathfinder as of late and it really got me worrying whether I’d get the Viking violence I was hoping for. I mean, I won’t speak for any of you but if I wanted a historically accurate film about Vikings I’d watch the History channel. I wanted to see this film for three reasons and three reasons only; the first is to watch rampaging Vikings and the second is because it was being directed by the dingus who directed the Texas Chainsaw remake and the third and final reason was Clancy Brown. Yeah…THAT Clancy Brown! The Kurgan himself!
Well folks, Pathfinder delivered. I got some cool battle sequences, awesome looking Vikings and the one and only, Clancy Brown. Yup, I was relatively pleased with Pathfinder…for the most part. Obviously, it wasn’t a perfect flick and some of the issues I had with it really bugged the shit out of me but I’ll get into that later.
A young white child is found alone in the wreckage of a Viking slave ship and brought back to an Indian village by the Chief’s wife. The tribe, very much wary of taking in a child of the “Dragon Men,” decides to allow the boy to stay. The child is named Ghost and he becomes a son to the chief of the tribe.
Fifteen years later, Ghost is now a grown man and in love with a beautiful girl named Starfire. Despite being a member of the tribe, he’s not fully accepted as one of them due to his struggle with his identity and the memories of his people. Unable to movie up in his tribe, Ghost finds himself without a path to follow.
One day while out on a hunting trip, Ghost’s younger sister is accosted by some hulking Dragon Men (Vikings) and chased back to her village. Unfortunately for her people, this is a tactic commonly used by the Vikings to locate villages and wipe out their populations. The Vikings plan to eradicate as many tribes as possible and clear the land before their people come and settle there. Only one person, Ghost’s Father, is left alive from the tribe and he’s forced to engage in combat with one of the Vikings for their sporting pleasure. Before Ghost can intervene on his Father’s behalf, the old man is killed. Having watched his Father dispatched so unceremoniously, Ghost leaps into action and does a little slicing and dicing of his own!
The chase is on! The Vikings don’t plan to let Ghost get away with his defiance! Now bent on using Ghost to their advantage, the Viking leader Gunnar and his crew set out to track Ghost down and force him to lead them to the next village. Can Ghost remain faithful to his adoptive tribe’s legacy?
Admittedly, there’s not a ton o’ story here. Fact is this is pretty damn skimpy but the real draw here is the Vikings and we get them big time. In my opinion that makes this a winner despite its shortcomings. If Pathfinder had made glorious promises of historic accuracies and award winning performances I might have been a tad pissed off but I knew what I’d be getting…VIKINGS HANDING PEOPLE THEIR ASSES. What was there to be let down about? The scarce dialogue? The occasionally dodgy CG gore? The incredibly forgettable score by Jonathan Elias?
Now, as I mentioned above there were some issues that bugged me. The first issue I had with this was the languages being spoken. Obviously this isn’t historically accurate so the Native Americans speaking in English didn’t bother me but why have the Vikings speak Icelandic? Why not just have EVERYBODY speak English and just go with the whole fantasy film flow? Why not have the Native’s speak a Native American language and just subtitle the goddamn movie?
Another petty issue I had with this flick was the presence of a shaggy little dog in the Native American tribe. Where exactly did they get a shaggy little dog from? This is 600 years before Columbus…THAT’S A LONG TIME AGO FOLKS. That’s about 892 A.D. Exactly where would one go in that time era and purchase a shaggy little dog? There’s also a German shepherd dog that appears later on in the movie as well. I couldn’t help but wonder if anybody thought about something so silly as the breed of a dog when they were putting this film together. Apparently not.
I should also probably mention that some of the CG gore was a bit iffy. I’m not entirely certain why Nispel just didn’t use good old fashion FX but I’m sure it had something to do with money. Perhaps CG blood and battle wounds are cheaper than blood packs and smokeless squibs?
Meh. Language issues, continuity and CG. No big deal I suppose.
Carl Urban’s performance as Ghost the cracker warrior was okay. I’m not one of the biggest Urban fans myself. He was great in The Chronicles of Riddick but in this particular role he…well…his week chin and bulgy eyeballs reminded me of a Boston Terrier. I know, I’ve got dogs on the brain, right? Really though, he just doesn’t have a leading man look to me. Now Clancy Brown on the other hand has bad ass written all over his face! He grunted, roared and kicked major Native ass! Aside from the chubby Moon Bloodgood gave me, I rooted the entire time for Clancy Brown and his Viking warriors.
By the way, some of you will barely recognize him but one-eyed Viking is muscle-man Rolf Muller from Cyborg, Conan (the TV series) and Beerfest!
Pathfinder was mindlessly entertaining but extremely forgettable. As enjoyable as it was I probably won’t watch it again. Great for a one time rental.
