Valhalla Rising (2009)

• Year: 2009
• Released: 31 Mar 2010
• Country: Denmark, United Kingdom
• Adwords: 4 wins & 9 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0862467/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Valhalla_Rising
• Metacritics: https://www.metacritic.com/movie/valhalla-rising
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: English
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
• Runtime: 93 min
• Writer: Nicolas Winding Refn, Roy Jacobsen, Matthew Read
• Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
• Cast: Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, Alexander Morton
• Keywords: escape, brutality, warrior, hell, slave,

	6.0/10
	61/100
	74% – Critics
	49% – Audience

Valhalla Rising Storyline

The Scottish Highlands, circa 1000 AD. After impaling the head of his hated oppressor on a stake, the mute Norse warrior of unparalleled strength known as One Eye takes his bloody revenge on those who imprisoned him. As he roams free in the unforgiving territory, One Eye, and his nameless young sidekick, embark on a crusade to Jerusalem, only to end up in an unknown, barren new world fraught with danger instead of the Holy Land. But, there, beyond the borders of good and evil, One Eye is about to discover that his fate had already been written by the gods.

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Valhalla Rising Movie Reviews

Creepy, atmospheric, and totally chilling Viking saga

This has to be one of the lowest budgeted films I’ve ever seen: a mere handful of cast members dressed in period costume and no sets whatsoever, unless you count a cage and a boat as a set. It’s a Viking epic shot entirely in the great outdoors, so if you’re a fan of beautifully rugged Scottish scenery standing in for most parts of the world, you’re in for a treat with this film.

The makers attempted to make the film look like 300 on the Blu-ray cover I purchased, complete with a cast of shield-wielding warriors in the background. It’s a total fallacy. Those expecting an action epic will be disappointed, because this is nothing of the sort: it’s actually a ‘heart of darkness’ type film, a journey into madness and despair, more like AGUIRRE, WRATH OF GOD than any other film I can mention. Our hero, One-Eye, is mute and expressionless, a kind of cipher full of mystery and macho coolness, as envisaged by some early scenes in which he takes part in slave fights, gorily dispatching his enemies by breaking necks, splitting skulls, and pulling out all of a guy’s internal organs in one gruesome, stick-in-the-mind interlude.

After a long time setting up an utterly bleak, dirty and harsh world, the plot begins for real: One-Eye and his buddy, a kid who’s the only sympathetic character in the film, join up with a bunch of Christians planning to spread the word in Jerusalem. After a fraught sea voyage, they actually turn up in North America, where they run foul of primitive Indians. It turns out that one of the plot points in this film – a Norse pillar to the Gods on a Delaware shore – was actually found to have happened by archaeologists, so it’s cool the film links that in. In any case, there’s no happy ending here, just madness, despair, death, and a bit of male rape thrown in too.

I was refreshed to see not a single special effect. There are nightmarish red-tinted dream sequences, in which One-Eye experiences flashes of the future. There’s a drug-induced spiral into madness featuring the aforementioned male rape and the building of the pillar. There’s a head-scratching ending twist that demands second viewing, and sudden moments of extreme violence and death that keep you completely unsettled while watching. I thought this was a great film, and it’s one of the best to make good use of the great outdoors. Here, the outside world is a hostile one in which fear of the unknown plays a big part: it’s creepy, atmospheric and sometimes totally chilling.

so agonizingly slow

It’s the dawn of Christianity in Scandinavia. One Eye (Mads Mikkelsen) is a mute warrior being held prisoner and forced into gladiatorial combat by the Norse chieftain Barde. He manages to get free killing his imprisoners. The slave boy Are follows him. They encounter a group of Christian warriors on a crusade against savages as they head for Jerusalem. They had heard of One Eye’s killing of the barbarian chieftain and allow the two to join them.

It is moody. It is bloody. It is brutal. It is really muddy. It is way too slow. The story is a grind. For all of the brooding menace, this movie flows like molasses. Mads is a great menacing figure. If this was shoot with any kind of excitement, this could be a good movie.

A 93-Minute Screenplay in One Page

Part I Wrath – A one-eye warrior (Mads Mikkelsen) is kept prisoner for years as slave of a Norse tribe to fight for money. One day, he kills his captors and successfully escapes with a boy. Part II: Silent Warrior – One Eye silently walks with the boy and they meet Christian warriors that invite them to travel to the Holy Land to convert heathens. Part III: Men of God – While sailing in the sea in a Viking vessel, the wind stops and the boat does not move for a long period. Part IV: The Holy Land – The group finally reaches an unknown land that they believe it is the Holy Land. Part V: Hell – The warriors face fear with the mysterious arrows that kill them and starvation. They believe that One Eye has brought them to hell and they start also killing each other. Part VI: Sacrifice – One Eye and the boy are surrounded by the locals and the warrior sacrifices himself to save the boy.

“Valhalla Rising” is weird and boring movie developed in an extremely slow pace where basically nothing happens. The cinematography is very beautiful but the screenplay might have been written in one page only since there are very few dialogs and no story. I really wanted to like this film and I watched it until the very end, but after all I was totally disappointed. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): “O Guerreiro Silencioso” (“The Silent Warrior”)