Day: April 25, 2022

I took a small car journey to the Cineworld cinema at Rochester – not in Rochester – to see the film The Northman. As I arrive on the esplanade I check the state of the river to see how high the water is. This gives me an indication of the level of tide in this area of our watery world. The tide was low. I think it’s about time I started plotting the relative positions of the Sun and Moon to Earth in these communications to lend more of a visual representation of what a high or low tide means for this section of our Solar System. I will have a search for some software that gives me what I need, or, I could just figure it out somehow.

After the film, I pondered for quite a while before settling on a score to rate this movie on IMBD. There is a whole communication covering the rating system and it is here. I then tweeted the result.

As you can see from my score I didn’t really like this film. I keep thinking about it and what I didn’t like. I’ve even read some reviews of the film online to try and understand what it was that made this considered a good film. I have also been questioning my own taste in films and what do I expect from them. What does a film have to have for me to think it is good and has that changed over the (many) years of my life?

I didn’t like this film. I didn’t enjoy the story and I didn’t like all the mystical bullshit that was put into the story [that’s probably more my problem than anyone else]. I can admire the colour schemes and general cinematography but that’s only worth being excellent when the story is also excellent and I hated the story. I might have to include spoilers ahead because I’m not sure I can review the film and put over my objections without mentioning particular aspects of the story. So be warned.

There are spoilers ahead in this paragraph. Apart from the weird mother son part which I just shrugged at I was most annoyed by the fact that the whole story was for nothing. The Northman’s journey and needing vengeance was partly to make amends for his father’s killing but also the taking of his mother. Who, as it just so happens, had planned the whole thing. When our anti-hero discovers this I don’t think he questions his role in life and on this planet. He almost does the right thing which is to head off into the sunset with his pregnant lover but he doesn’t he goes back to make sure we get an excellently cinematic final fight off. There was always going to be one ending.

I know the film is based on folklore and most of that stuff is fucked up but I just don’t think it worked. The film felt like a 300 for this age. Vikings done stylistically. I hated the story.