Robert Eggers’ ‘The Northman’ is Crazy Good Fun

The embargo has lifted on Robert Eggers’ “The Northman.” The reviews are more-than-good. An 80 on Metacritic and 90% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The Northman” underwent an intense series of reshoots last year, this after politely received test screenings put a damper on the possibility of it being released in 2021. Eggers’ third feature has had a somewhat problematic journey thus far. What we have here is an ambitious and massive film that is said to have a $90 million budget.

Its screenplay was co-written by Icelandic novelist and poet Sjón Sigurdsson, but the ambiguously spooky storytelling of Eggers’ earlier films is replaced with a more mainstream approach here. That’s perfectly fine. This isn’t the kind of movie that will break any sort of cinematic mold, but it’s rousingly entertaining stuff. Watch it on the big screen with a large audience, if you can.

I wrote about it on 04.06.22:

“Never discount a true filmmaker, even with studio interference. “The Northman” runs 140 minutes and I was never bored, and that means something these days. It feels, obviously, very familiar, as it’s based on the legend of Amleth, which inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but it’s incredibly well–directed.”

“What “The Northman” lacks is the artful ambiguity of Eggers’ first two films, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse”. The influence of studio notes is apparent throughout.”

“But it’s not that much of a slog, and despite a little too much CG with a climax happening at the mouth of an active volcano, two naked men fighting, not the best endin, Hollywood doesn’t really make epics of this kind anymore.“

“You can tell Eggers wanted a more elevated, visually-driven movie but the reshoots made it more ‘entertaining.’ Hopefully a director’s cut shows up someday, more of a pure Eggers version. The off-the-top influences are “Hamlet”, “Gladiator” and Game of Thrones”.

“Alexander Skarsgaard’s lead performance is stellar. Ethan Hawke, as Skarsgaard’s murdered king-father, is in the film for maybe 10 minutes. Nicole Kidman, Hawke’s wife-queen, has a few scenes (her screen time comes to roughly 20 minutes) that she just nails. Anya Taylor Joy cuts a vivid figure, but a terrible accent.”

“How many heads are split open with axes? I’d say about a dozen. The killings are extremely brutal. A fair amount of intestine spilling. There’s some kind of nod to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he reports, and the skull of Yorick makes an appearance.”