Pathfinder [2007] (DVD)

Crap! Ok the 1 star is for the costumes of the vikings, thats the only thing good about this film. The story is really really bad, vikings invade america but die apart from 1 boy, he gets found by indians and gorws up becoming one of them. Vikings then come back kill all the indians, you only see like 20 vikings at a time but the boy who by now is a man kills like 500 of them lol. After he kills them all the movies over, i told my family this would be a good movie as it was on at the cinemas and made them watch it with me on a sunday night, i felt soo ashamed of myself afterwards, that says it all lol.

I feel no em-path-y with this film. Pathfinder is a peculiar mixture of historical drama, action hero thriller, horror and fantasy and manages to be shoddily unconvincing at all of them.It,s a remake of far superior 1987 Norwegian film. It has a grainy stylish sheen courtesy of cinematographer Daniel Pearl that reeks of quality .If only the same care and attention had gone into the script , characterisation, plot , and just about everything else really. The film feels authentic historically, showing as it does Vikings encountering native Americans around 900AD but couldn't have been riddled with more inaccuracies if it had been written by the cast of "Hollyoaks". Some of these , the large horns on the helmets for instance were deliberate and were included for aesthetic and dramatic purposes but others are just silly .Displaying the Vikings as vicious genocidal killers goes against all that is documented about them and if I were a Viking descendant I'd be a bit peeved and feel tempted to go round the producers and directors with a big axe but that would only vindicate their portrayal wouldn't it? You could argue that such historical dereliction were justifiable if the film were any good but it's an oddly uninviolving affair which for a film featuring the mass slaying of whole families in gaudy gory detail is not a good recommendation. Karl Urban as "Ghost" who is found in the wreckage of a Viking ship and adopted by a native tribe has all the action man attributes but displays none of the gravitas or existential pain required for a man supposedly struggling to find his identity..... or path .He just looks like he's got terrible wind for the most part. Russell Means the Pathfinder of the title dispenses supposedly profound epigrams about destiny and individualism which sound like they have come from a Netto Christmas cracker and Moon Bloodgood as "Starfire" the romantic interest is given a look pretty and occasionally feisty role that requires her to do little other than pout and shout. Perennial baddie Clancy Brown plays the leader of the Norse men Gunnar as a towering hairy behemoth with black pits for eyes grumbling darkly in Icelandic (In lieu of the language Vikings actually spoke). In truth he looks like he should be a member of a nihilistic speed metal band .Director Marcus Nispel and writer Laeta Kalogridis have made a film that is straining so badly to be taken seriously that you can almost hear grunting on the soundtrack. The reality is though they have created a visually spectacular but hollow and rather dull movie that has the quick cut edit feel of an expensive music video. If only they had given Clancy Brown a different type of axe it might have been more memorable.

A horrible movie and horrible mistake! This movie is clearly only made to please horror fans but has nothing but historical bloobers - worse it totally turns around facts, lack any real historical research... First Vikings NEVER had horns on there helmets -this was an invention of Christian monks wanting to paint the Northern peoples as 'devils wearing horns' all finds of ancient Viking helmets are without 'horns' Second the Vikings settling on Vineland (as they called North America) was peacefully and they most likely were in contact with Eskimos NOT Native American Tribes - there is no proof (fictal or historical) that they ever raided those tribes - there were misunderstanding asiring after a while but most historians now believe the Vikings left North America because the climate changed and for this it became too difficult for them to keep up the farming community they had established so they resettled to Greenland. Third - Vikings were not more brutal or vicious than other etnic groups! Even the Anglo-Saxon chronicles seem to suggest that most contacts with them were peaceful and based on trade. They were Pagans and for this often regarded as less 'good' than Chritians - most of the writing we have on them as raiders were writen in the midst of the Northern Crusades where the Popes had called to root out the Pagan religions in the North and Slavic parts of Europe and for this we should be very careful when reading those accounts as it may be not all is totally correct... and as we have no written account from the Pagan point of view we should be very careful indeed... By the way did you know that according to Viking law man who raped women were put to death? That they had things (meetings) were all freeman AND woman could have there say in all matters and that their kings/jarls were 'elected' by those gatherings and that the two oldest parlements in the world are both of Viking origin? (Iceland/ Man of Isle) that they were famous for been 'clean' and 'well groomed' and that the Byzantium emperor hired them as his own body guards because they were famous as loyal, brave and honourable warriors? So as always every story has two sites... and this movie defently doesn't show that excpet deepen the wrong and unjust images created by those who had no interest in the truth. So in my opinion - when watching this movie keep in mind that it is purely a horror movie ment to shock people not a historical account of what happened as that would be very unfair to those they painted much too black and dirty in this movie...

Good Fun! I watched this film really expecting the worst but was pleasantly surprised! It was an actioned packed adventure movie with brutal fight scenes and a mystical air to it. Having the vikings speaking Iclandic was a good touch and be assured that the way they were depicted pillaging it probably not to far from the truth. Lets not forget the Viking Raiders were not known for their diplomacy! All in all an enjoyable film and certainly not worthy of some of the slating reviews it has received!

Mmmmmm Great idea. Looks great. Historically dubious. 'We're good, you're evil' premise. Confusing switches between dialogue of the various characters. Breaking the movie down to its common denominator: It's trash. But watching it, however, is strangely entertaining. WARNING: Rent, don't buy.