Campea/Nagy Double Feature Review of Pathfinder

JOHN’S THOUGHTS ON PATHFINDER:

It’s been over a year since we first hear whispers of a possible “Vikings vs. Indians” movie that got a lot of internet movie fanboys (myself included) frothing at the proverbial mouth. Pathfinder is that movie, and when you add in there a talent like Karl Urban (Lord of the Rings, Bourne Supremacy, Doom) there was almost a fevered frenzy over it.

But then came along the first trailer months ago… and I remember expressing some doubt over the project. I couldn’t really put my finger on it at the time… but as Doug recalls I said it felt “thin” to me. Still, I was enthusiastic about seeing the film, and off we went the other night.

The story begins (according to the film) 600 years before Columbus. A Native woman stumbles across a wrecked Viking ship with frozen bodies polluting the inside. All dead, except for one young boy. The native woman takes the boy back to her village where he is adopted as one of their own. The story then picks up years later… and the boy is now a man (Karl Urban). The Vikings have returned to plunder and kill all the native inhabitants and only Karl Urban can stop them and save his new adopted people.

Right to the point, I was VERY disappointed with this film on several levels. First and foremost was the dialog. Oh my goodness. At least 6 or 7 times in the film me and the people I was with turned to each other and (quietly) said “he didn’t just really say that did he?”. Wow was it ever cheesy.

The “story” itself and the characters where thin as paper itself. Although it is an admittedly unfair comparison, let’s look at Conan The Barbarian for a second. Although on it’s surface Conan was a simple hack slash Barbarian movie… there was actually much more to it. Great unspoken character development with Conan himself… a life long quest for revenge culminating with the confrontation with Thusla Doom. Along the way he meets companions and falls in love. All developed on screen, and often without dialog. Pathfinder had no such development, nor any layers beyond its surface. Things happen, and you’re just supposed to accept it. Urban’s character falls in love, but they never show us how or why. A bald mute joins Urban on his mission of vengeance… but we never know why. Nothing is developed. I’m not saying a movie has to spell everything out for us… but develop the story. Pathfinder fails to develop for either the story itself or its characters.

There was plenty of action in the movie… unfortunately is was poor action. Come to think of it, it was more like “Hostel” than an action movie. We see lots of gross things happen to some people in a violent way… but that’s all it was. Violence for the sake of violence. Never a real taste of “action” that a lot of people went in thinking there was going to be. A guy crushing another man’s head with a hammer isn’t “action”. Not all movies need action… but when that’s what your film is supposedly centered around… and you don’t have much of a plot or any discernible character development, you better have action there to pick up the slack. Pathfinder fails to do that. The closest thing to a legitimate action scene was…. are you ready for this… a toboggan fight. No I’m serious. And yes… it looked as silly as it sounds.

Add on top of that a horrible ending that has most of us scratching our heads and looking at each other wondering how the director could make such a massive leap (you’ll see what I mean). It was a cop out ending, plain and simple.

Now, on the positive side the Vikings were terrific. Everything from their look… their language… their sound… their movement… all of it was menacing and filled with horror. They were some of the best Vikings I’ve ever seen in a movie. They instilled terror at the sight of them, and the director (Marcus Pispel) used that terror well to let us feel how the villages of the Native Americans would have been gripped at the sight of these armored and fierce strangers. They felt like an enemy that was hopeless to fight against. Nicely done.

Sadly, there’s not much to say about Karl Urban here. Neither good nor bad really. The man was given a hollow character with some terrible lines that Alec Guinness himself would have had a hard time with. Still… even with the little he was given, he didn’t sell me on anything at all. He’s capable of better, and I’m sure we’ll see better from him in the near future.

Overall, I’m giving Pathfinder a 3 out of 10. And on our scale of No, Go and Routh… I’m giving it a “no”.

DOUG’S THOUGHTS ON PATHFINDER:

When it comes to movies with vikings and or swords I am biased, because I live for them. Pathfinder pretty much started like I wanted it to – lots of Native elders talking about spirits and prophecies and then the Vikings attack. It seemed to get into the action right away with a raid on the hometown of the lost viking Ghost (that looked very similar to the intro of Conan). He then seeks revenge and the movie looks to be set up perfectly for a kick ass viking film.

What follows is a chase scene, followed by a cave battle and this portion of the movie starts to drag, the dialogue starts to get annoying and the vikings are invincible to all but snow. I was hoping for a massive amount of natives vs vikings but that is not to be.

By Thor’s hammer the last act of this film is a lot of walking. Way too much walking and not enough sword play. The romance began to get really bothersome for me but an amazing quote was delivered during a very cheesy moment. “Every man has 2 wolves in his heart” that is right folks – 2 wolves – in your heart. The ending was super weak for me. What started out to be an awesome viking assault movie ended like a National Film Board of Canada documentary on Native Americans for grade 3 school kids.

I wanted to like this movie, I yearned for it, I liked it up front, everything looked amazing, and it certainly had cool stuff in it. Overall I would say GO if you are nuts for vikings, No if you are indifferent. I would give this a 6 out of 10, – probably due to my respect for the all-father Odin.