The Northman (2022) ★★★★★

“I will avenge you, Father! I will save you, Mother! I will kill you, Fjölnir!"

The Northman was the most anticipated movie of 2022 for me. Then I lost my hearing. My new CEO was a toxic asshole. Blah blah blah, yada yada yada. 2022 sucked ass, and every film I watched back then deserved a rewatch.

Like most of my  "MOMENT" movies, I saw this with my sons, but it landed with a dull thud. They loved it. I didn’t. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t enjoy it either. So I never logged a review.

I tried again a year later, but it still didn’t do much for me. My hindbrain must have told my forebrain, “Hold on. The dude’s still not himself. Give him time.”

Last night I put it back on, hoping the third time would be the charm—and it was.

I’ve been accused of overrating movies, and maybe that’s true. But this rating? Spot-on. Impeccable. Unpenetrable. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Prove me wrong.

This was one of the most immersive movie experiences I’ve had since Dune Part Two. Maybe not the best revenge film ever, but definitely one of my favorites—sitting right behind Gladiator.

Robert Eggers grabbed me by the nether regions and yanked me violently, grunting and flexing, into the Viking era—’ natch, too much testosterone everywhere.

This is Amleth’s story, the precursor to Hamlet. Amleth (I keep wanting to say Amex) is on a mission to avenge his father, murdered by his own brother to steal his wife and kingdom. It might be the most accessible Shakespearean-adjacent movie I’ve ever seen.

Eggers has a soft spot for mythological history and thankfully filters that through genre film. He seamlessly blends horror and mythology, eliciting career-best performances from his actors. With a $90M budget, every cent is right there on the screen—score, cast, story, language, costumes, locations, cinematography, and everything else I’m forgetting.

Eggers can be dense and confounding. It took me three viewings of The Lighthouse and several “ending explained” videos before I felt like I had any grasp of it. Here, the story’s straightforward—except for Amleth’s visions (were they visions?) of Norse mythological figures. I’ll need to read up on that before the next rewatch.

I read that the film was initially shot primarily in Old Norse and Slavic, but test screenings couldn’t follow it—even with subtitles—so they redubbed much of it into English. I usually hate dubbing, but I never noticed once. Now I have this rare completionist urge to see the original version.

Alexander Skarsgård went all in. His hunched, ripped frame, with that scowling, furrowed face, was vengeance personified. Anya Taylor-Joy was excellent too, a reminder that she’s a great actress who has been recently miscast (Furiosa, Dune Part Two). The two of them had real chemistry. The scene where Amleth leaves her after finding out she’s pregnant—choosing his destiny of vengeance—is heartbreaking. I was sad and happy at the same time. Is that even an emotion?

This flopped at the box office but made up a lot on streaming. Studios need to keep giving Eggers money. He’ll make every penny count. Nosferatu is going to be insane.

I’m so damn glad I came around to this. It’s a movie I’ll be talking about for a long, long time.