One of those movies that crams action scenes one after another without any build-up.

A very gritty, violent, and somewhat visually striking "historical" action film. Karl Urban is perhaps the only reason to even watch this movie, which leans heavily into its own style—maybe a bit too much. Because at the same time, this movie leaves everything else in the background.

We are presented with a tale steeped in visual darkness. The unforgiving natural landscape becomes a crucible for its characters, forcing them to claw, battle, and forge their way through a chaotic, unrelenting world. The confrontation with one's past, sword in hand, and the journey of learning and transformation are depicted with surprising effectiveness. Yet, the writing itself feels…

In the unholy radiance which is the Marcus Nispel Feature Filmography, there are two broad categories: Teen Slasher and Sword & Sorcery. Pathfinder falls manifestly in the latter camp, but that does not prevent it from also being a horror movie, specifically of the Alien Invasion format, the kind with unfamiliar languages, weapons, technologies brought to bear in overwhelming slaughter, only to be defeated by guerilla tactics and intimate knowledge of the landscape. What prevents Pathfinder from being another iteration of Red Dawn (or First Blood, a clear antecedent) is that it is drenched in horror methodology and iconography. Nispel puts every bit of slasher-flick experience points amassed in the making of 2003's Texas Chainsaw Massacre to work here, and work…

Frazetta wept.
 
In theory, Pathfinder should be right up my alley. A hyperviolent Norsemen versus Natives showdown, chock full of broadsword/bow & arrow carnage, starring Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood, Russel Means, and Clancy Brown? A film where sword & sorcery and horror tropes are intertwined while the plot mechanics seem to be lifted entirely from Cliffhanger? 

Sign me the fuck up. 

Sadly, Marcus Nispel seems to be hellbent on ensuring Pathfinder is one of the ugliest movies of all time, draining the film of almost all its color, coating it with a THICK layer of grain, and opting to shoot the action in the handheld “shaky cam” method, which was the style at the time. Even if Pathfinder was a top-flight…

what fascinates in the theoretical conflict between first nations people and vikings is the recapitulation of IRL genocide but denied through a pre-renaissance lens -- that the viking warrior came into the land unknown to him and waged his war and was turned back by a native resistance which had the means and advantage to repel him. the viking stands for the last remnants of pagan life in europe and thus reads to chauvinistic eyes as equally 'primitive' to the american first nations tribes, but the viking also bears the weight of wagner and hitler and this idiotic traditionalist notion of 'pure' white blonde warriors who carried fire and axe and conquered all who'd dare challenge them, the cult of…

Absolutely understand why anyone would hate this—for one thing, it's ugly as sin, with a garish bleach bypass palette, an overload of film grain, and claustrophobic handheld camerawork—but I am no innocent, I did not rent a Vikings-and-Natives movie from the director of the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" remake with the expectation of beauty. I wanted blood, steel blades, and mid-aughties horror movie aesthetics brought to bear on the historical action genre—and I more or less got it.

"Pathfinder" works best when it leans into Marcus Nispel's horror bonafides, works less when it attempts to appeal to anyone who liked "Lord of the Rings." Sure, it's easy to wonder what this could have been with a more accomplished director and an…

🧡 = Technical Merit (Make-up, Costumes & Visual Effects)

🧡 = Artistic Vision (Mood & Atmosphere)

There's a good action movie in here somewhere, I swear.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Based on the Dark Horse graphic novel of the same name, Pathfinder looks, feels, sounds, smells and tastes unmistakably of a graphic novel adaptation. The combination of very high contrast, lush background scenery, brutal violence and highly stylized characters is quite unique visually, and appears to do its source material justice-- specifically when it comes to the antagonists of the story. Between the warpaint, matted hair, and general grime, the guttural sounds and baritone grunts, the heavy armor, steel and fur, the film succeeds in conveying the Viking marauders as genuinely terrifying, bloodthirsty killing…