Robert Eggers has been known as a very talented director since his idiosyncratic horror films The Witch and The Lighthouse. He received a budget of $65 million for The Northman, to which an additional $5 million was added due to COVID-related circumstances.
This raises expectations that are fortunately largely fulfilled. The Northman is a pleasantly clunky Viking epic, where at set times a head flies through the air or some guts come out. So yummy.
The story is based on the same Scandinavian saga from which Shakespeare borrowed his famous Hamlet. As a child, protagonist Prince Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) sees his father the king (Ethan Hawke) murdered by his bastard brother (Claes Bang) and returns years later in disguise to exact revenge and free his mother (Nicole Kidman).
The plot is wafer thin but has an interesting twist. We basically identify with Amleth, but is he really the hero? Or will all fighting men eventually look so much alike that one can hardly be distinguished from the other?
Eggers and Co skillfully portray everything, but a little humor wouldn't have hurt. The deadly serious tone that Eggers adopts now and then tends to self-parody.
Still, it is a worthy effort that proves that Eggers can make the best use of a bigger budget.