Movie Review: Army of Valhalla

Army of Valhalla (Stara basn. Kiedy slonce bylo bogiem) a.k.a Ancient Tale: When the Sun Was God a.k.a The Old Fairy Tale: When the Sun Was God a.k.a The Old Fairy 

Zodiak Jerzy Hoffman Film Production Sp. z o.o., Telewizja Polska (TVP), Syrena Entertainment Group, Agencja Produkcji Filmowej, Zodiak, Poland, 2003. 

Based on historical characters and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski's novel "Stara basn."

Evil Prince Popiel (Bogdan Stupka) and wife Ksiezna (Malgorzata Foremniak) plot to murder Popiel's nephews to make their son the next prince. Then Popiel takes hostages to keep the tribes under his thumb. The witches predict that Popiel will be defeated by heroes and he will be eaten by mice. 

Popiel and Ksiezna

Viking archer Ziemowit (Michal Zebrowski), son of hero Piast, saves pretty witch Dziwa (Marina Aleksandrova) in the forest. Romance must wait as Popiel's thugs are hunting down the dissidents. Guardian Piastun of the nephews (Daniel Olbrychski) is ambushed in the forest and Ziemovit saves him too. Ziemowit wants to marry Dziwa but she is already promised to Gods. Ziemowit abducts Dziwa but she stabs him. What will now happen to the prophecies? 

Ziemowit

Dziwa

Guardian Piastun

I don't know if something is lost in the translation or did the movie change some details, as the film seems to refer the Guardian (Piastun or Piast) and Ziemowit's father as separate characters but historically Piast was Ziemowit's father. 

The tribes start rebelling against cruel Popiel. Popiel recruits mercenary Vikings to crush the rebellion and sends creepy spy Znosek (Andrzej Pieczynski) to get information. The rebels prepare for war but their no-tactic attack is brutally pushed back. They need heroes to lead them. Luckily Guardian is a tactical genius and Ziemovit was just wounded. There is also girl named Mila (Katarzyna Bujakiewicz) who wants Ziemowit and goes to Witch Jarucha (Ewa Wisniewska) to get love potions. That doesn't end happily as the Vikings attack just when the magic starts to work.

Znosek

Mila

Tribal army

Jerzy Hoffman directs historic epics that are criminally unknown outside of Poland. However "With Fire and Sword" and "Battle of Warsaw 1920" are available even as Finnish DVDs. The British DVD cover of "Army of Valhalla" looks like attempt to lure the viewers with stylized violence of "300." There are some gory battles but more in 1980s medieval war movie style, maybe Paul Verhoeven's "Flesh+Blood" or John Boorman's "Excalibur" would be closer to the depiction. However the cover is not completely misguiding as the big Viking warrior with the horned mask appears in the movie. Even without the axe he is a formidable character. He is legendary Viking Jarl Sigvald (Dariusz Juzyszyn) who actualy lived some hundred years after Popiel's reign. But this is not so much a movie about Vikings but historical fiction about origins of the Polish nation.

Jarl Sigvald

Macbethian historic adventure from pre-Christian Poland depicts the time when Odin-worshipping Vikings clashed with the Eastern European Sun-worshipping tribes and the Old Gods had not yet been subdued by Christianity. The story has bearded honorable warriors and fair maidens with decent amount of Pagan eroticism. Those who are bored with Hollywood spectacularism and special effects should try these European down to Earth historic adventures.

Harvest festival

Warriors of Odin

Popiel's castle

Rating: Good 

Starring: Michal Zebrowski, Marina Aleksandrova, Malgorzata Foremniak, Daniel Olbrychski, Bogdan Stupka, Anna Dymna, Ewa Wisniewska, Maciej Kozlowski, Jerzy Trela, Andrzej Pieczynski, Katarzyna Bujakiewicz, Ryszard Filipski, Jan Prochyra, Dariusz Juzyszyn, Marcin Mroczek, Michal Sieczkowski, Adam Graczyk, Maciej Chorzelski, Andrzej Krukowski, Krystyna Feldman, Krzysztof Zarzecki, Maria Niklinska, Wiktor Zborowski, Grzegorz Emanuel, Sylwester Maciejewski, Ryszard Ronczewski, Tomasz Zaliwski, Zdzislaw Wardejn, Marceli Nowek, Ryszard Jablonski, Jan Janga-Tomaszewski, Edward Warzecha, Jerzy Dukay, Arkadiusz Bazak, Jerzy Braszka, Mariusz Jakus, Eryk Lubos, Maciej Zakoscielny, Stefan Szmidt, Aleksander Skowronski, Stanislaw Wdowczyk, Zdzislaw Szymborski, Andrzej Shalew, Bogdan Miklaszewicz, Krzysztof Lukaszewicz, Andrzej Graziewicz, Sergei Motenko, Janusz Sadowski, Wojciech Tomasz Biernawski, Mieczyslaw Janowski, Aleksander Pociej, Michal Chorosinski, Mariusz Drezek, Andrzej Kobylas, Marek Cichucki, Sylwester Zawadzki, Karolina Gruszka, Jerzy Hoffman, Robert Koszucki 

Director: Jerzy Hoffman

Movie Review: How to Train Your Dragon 2

How to Train Your Dragon 2
20th Century Fox, DreamWorks Animation, Mad Hatter Entertainment, USA, 2014. 

Some years after the events in the first movie the vikings of the Berk Village live together with the dragons. The collaboration has made new extreme sports possible such as Harry Potter's Quidditch-style sheep-ball game. Hiccup and his dragon Toothless are more fans of individual sports so they go skydiving. They are searching for new lands and new dragon species. Hiccup's father Stoick the Vast wants to make him the new chief but Hiccup doubts if he will be up to the task. 

Hiccup and Toothless

Astrid and Hiccup drawing a map

Stoick wants to make Hiccup the new chief

Hiccup and his girlfriend Astrid bump into Eret's dragon hunters. They are catching dragons for a man named Drago Bludvist. Drago is building an army of dragon riders and planning to conqueri the world. Stoick fears Drago for he is a ruthless madman. Hiccup wants to negotiate with Drago to stop the war. 

Drago

Mysterious dragon rider is rescuing captured dragons and causes nuisance to Drago. Hiccup gets a great surprise when the identity of the dragon rescuer is revealed. Hiccup must get the vikings and the dragon rescuer to co-operate so that they can save Berk and the dragons. 

Dragon sanctuary

Valka and Hiccup

Alpha dragon

The animation looks great. The sceneries and flight scenes are beautifully rendered. The dragons are cute and act like big kittens or puppies. The story has both funny and emotional scenes when secrets from Hiccup's childhood are revealed. Friends of Hiccup offer the comic relief, there are goofy twins Ruffnut (girl) and Tuffnut (boy), chubby dragon card collector Fishlegs, and chivalric Snotlout. There is a slight Star Wars feeling, Hiccup's flame sword is like a light sabre, the battle in the middle part looks like "Empire Strikes Back" and there is a kind of "Luke, I'm your father" moment.

The story is darker than the first movie, and the characters are grown up from the first movie. There is also viking funeral. The first movie was nice but this part takes the franchise to more interesting path. It is a story about Hiccup becoming a viking leader protecting peace but defending his village if necessary. Hiccup is pressurized by his parents' expectations but in the end he must find his own path. There is also a message of protecting animals.The minuses are that after the exciting, emotional and funny first half the finale is quite predictable routine work. The ending also leaves some plot holes (that maybe are answered in the "How to Train Your Dragon 3"). As some of Hiccup's friends are trying to grow a beard, I wonder if Hiccup will look like Commander Riker in the next movie.

Rating: Very good 

Voice actors: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, T.J. Miller, Kristen Wiig, Djimon Hounsou, Kit Harington, Kieron Elliott, Philip McGrade, Andrew Ableson, Gideon Emery, Simon Kassianides, Randy Thom 

Director: Dean DeBlois

Movie Review: Vikingdom

Vikingdom

Universal Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Epic Pictures Releasing, KRU Studios, Malaysia, USA, 2013.

King of Jomsberg, Eirick (Dominic Purcell) is mortally wounded, he leaves the kingdom to his brother Beothric (Tim P. Doughty) and dies. During Blood Eclipse a gate opens between Valhalla, Midgard and Helheim (or Heaven, Earth and Hell).

Eirick

Thor

Christianity is advancing but God of Thunder Thor (Conan Stevens) decides to return Viking gods to power. Thor needs three keys to open the gates. Frey (Jesse Moss) and Freya (Tegan Moss) ressurrect Eirick, and Eirick spends time in the wilderness. Eirick is the personal favourite of Freya, If You Know What I Mean.

Freya

Frey tells that Thor is about to destroy the world. As an undead warrior Eirick can travel betweeno Midgard and Helheim. Eirick must get a horn from Helheim, so that he can use its the power to destroy Thor's human body and send him back to Valhalla.

Sven

Yang

Eirick and his pal Sven (Craig Fairbrass) start their voyage to Osberg to meet Alcuin the Wizard (Patrick Murray). They free an Asian slave Yang (Jon Foo) who knows kung fu. They arrive late, as Alcuin is already kidnapped by Geats (a.k.a Goths). King Karl Redbeard (Geoffrey Giuliano) offers the heroes mead and food. Eirick recruits men for the attack against Goths. The new members of the group are:

Olaf (Bart Van Der Molen) and Gregor (unknown actor!) - Sons of Karl

Yamar (Torstein Olaussen) - The Hunter

Henrik (Ignas Versinskas) - The Lad

Warrick (Valentine Cawley) - The Old Bugger

Bernard (Bruce Blain) - The Killer of Women and Children

Brynna the Fair (Natassia Malthe) - Reader of Wind.

Karl Redbeard knows how to throw a party

Brynna

In Gotland the heroes fight some Goths and free Alcuin. Next Eirick must go to Hell to get the Horn. There he meets undead warriors and golden girls. Also hell hound Garm does not let the living leave Helheim. After many twists, betrayals and battles Eirick and Thor wrestle with heavy metal playing in the background.

A sailing we will go

Vikings in Gotland

Alcuin

This is a mythical adventure in the footsteps of "Wrath of the Titans" with aesthetics of  "300." Some effects look cheap, but the budget was only a fraction of similar Hollywood epics. The action is okay and the story has some interesting turns, but the story could use a tighter pace as as the movie is long for an action movie (1 h 50 min). Still the background of the crew members are left vague and the characters are undeveloped. Conan Stevens is hulky Thor, but does not really get many opportunities to swing his mighty (plastic) hammer. Dominic Purcell's acting is quite wooden, but luckily the supporting characters bring some lighter moments.

What is again hardest to accept is the Hollywood-style butchering of the old myths and making Thor the bad guy. In the original myths Thor was the protector of mankind who fought against evil giants. In this movie Thor aims to destroy Christianity and his actions would free the giants to cause chaos on the Earth. That would be more like behaviour of Loki the God of Mischief. Given the richness of the ancient poems, it would not be impossible to do a film that would do justice to the original texts.

Rating: Average

Starring: Dominic Purcell, Natassia Malthe, Craig Fairbrass, Jon Foo, Conan Stevens, Patrick Murray, John Reynolds, Tim P. Doughty, Bruce Blain, Ray Kril, Aida Rakhimora, Jesse Moss, Tegan Moss, Trevor Coppola, Mahyar Baghdadi Mahmoud, Ignas Versinskas, Geoffrey Giuliano (as Jeffrey Joseph Juliana), Bart Van Der Molen, Alle Jelle de Boer, Jonathan Samson, Valentine Cawley (as Tommy James Cawley), Judd Wild, Torstein Olaussen, Michael Hagerty-Roach, Alexander William Johnson, Ron Smoorenburg, Julian Mokhtar, Byron Gibson, Simon James Thomas, Payam Gouya Hossein, Roger Anthony Childs, Peter Rnic, Creighton Mark Johnson, Anteo Quintavalle, Besnik Kallaba, Matthew Knowles, Damian Mavis

Director: Yusry Abd Halim (as Yusry Kru)

Movie Review: The Last of the Vikings

The Last of the Vikings (L'ultimo dei Vikinghi)
Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Edmund Purdom, Isabelle Corey, Hélène Rémy, Andrea Aureli, Mario Feliciani, Aldo Bufi Landi, Carla Calò, Corrado Annicelli, Nando Tamberlani, Nando Angelini, Piero Gerlini, George Ardisson 

Director: Giacomo Gentilomo (and Mario Bava uncredited)
Tiberius Film, Critérion Film, Galatea Film, Les Films du Cyclope, Italy, France, 1962.

This movie is published as a part of Warriors 50 movie pack box published by Mill Creek Entertainment. 

The vikings raid a ship of ambassador from Denmark travelling to Sveno, the King of Norway. The vikings do not believe that there is a king in Norway. They take the diplomats as prisoners and also loot some kegs of beer. Harold (Cameron Mitchell) and his little brother Guntar (George Ardisson) are waiting to see his father Sigurd after ten years. However no-one is there to welcome them. Old man (Nando Tamberlani) tells that Sveno (Edmund Purdom) has killed Sigurd. Because Sigurd was killed without a weapon in his hand, his soul can not enter Valhalla before his death is avenged. 

Harold on his ship

Vikings capture ambassador Godrun

Harold and Guntar

Guntar and his friend Lorig (Benito Stefanelli) meet Haakon (Andrea Aureli) in the forest. He will come meet Harold later at Viken with his men. Haakon's wife Herta (Carla Calò) would like him to be the ruler. So Haakon's wife is acting like Lady Macbeth. Harold makes a blood oath to kill Sveno. 

Lorig

Herta and Haakon

Simon and King Sveno

Haakon says to Harold that Sveno is too strong and has a sturdy castle. Creepy King Sveno wants his cousin Hilde (Isabelle Corey) to marry a Danish king to seal the alliance between Sveno and Denmark. Hilde is not happy with the idea and she talks with her friend Erika (Hélène Rémy) who reveals to have known Harold's family since child. Sveno waits the envoy and reinforcements from his allies in Denmark. 

Hilde and Erika

Hardak

Erika

Vikings fight Sveno's men in the forest. Vikings celebrate the victory and Guntar is the hero of the battle. Sveno's commander Hardak (Piero Lulli) was captured, and Haakon tortures him. Vikings know now that Sveno is waiting for the Danish diplomats. The vikings disguise as Danish ambassadors. Londborg (Aldo Bufi Landi) comes along as Harold's aide. Harold, disguised as Danish prince Ragmar falls in love with Hilde. 

Hilde falls in love with Harold

Harold disguised as prince Ragmar

VIkings hanging out

The vikings get some important information about the defences of the castle. However Haakon releases the real Danish ambassador Godrun (Corrado Annicelli) for his own causes. Guntar wants to go to castle to save Harold, but other vikings do not believe that the escaped ambassador will survive in the wilderness. Guntar does not trust Haakon, and he asks Lorig to spy on him. Guntar rides alone to save Harold but is captured. 

Londborg and Harold negotiate

Guntar wants to warn Harold

Harold saves Hilde, who is attacked by a bear. He is quite an axe-thrower for a Danish prince. However Harold thinks that Hilde should also die because she is Sveno's relative. Erika recognises Guntar and reveals that she also wants to kill Sveno. Erika asks Harold not to hurt Hilde. Hilde says she would give her throne for a true love. 

The "Danish" diplomats are leaving, and taking Hilde with them. Sveno's right-hand man Simon (Nando Angelini) wants to be sure that Ragmar does not seduce Hilde during the sea voyage. Prince Ragmar must stay in Sveno's castle until the alliance is secured. He agrees but plans to escape at night. As the "Danish" set sail, they rip their disguises and start drinking beer. Hilde is shocked to be the hostage of vikings. Also Harold is shocked, when he sees his brother crucified in dungeon. His day gets worse when Godrun arrives in the castle and blows Harold's cover. Harold fights the guards and rushes to save Guntar. They escape through a hole in wall. 

Sveno has captured Guntar

Meanwhile Haakon has taken power and detains Londborg. Guntar does not survive the escape and dies. Guntar goes back to Viken and punishes the traitor. Harold wants to drive Hilde away, but Hilde wants to stay. However soon Sveno's men kill Erika and capture Hilde. The vikings attack the castle using a siege tower and burning logs. The end battle is actually quite spectacular. The vikings save Hilde and Sveno dies grasping the throne. 

The old wise man (Nando Tamberlani)

Harold and Hilde finally kiss

The end battle

This is a film that would benefit from a good restoration. Vikings yell Odin when going to battle, have wild parties and drink a lot of beer. Mario Bava's touch is evident in couple of dark and bloody scenes. Edmund Burke is fun as an over-the-top evil king who rubs his hands constantly. The movie is an entertaining viking adventure.

Rating: Good