John Maguire on film: The Northman, a Viking tale that thrills with unsettling visions and ferocious violence
Director Robert Eggers brings to life the Norse myth that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet in a breathtaking action-filled epic
Cinema’s battlefield is littered with the corpses of Viking films that failed at the box office, from John McTiernan’s The 13th Warrior to Nicolas Winding Refn’s Valhalla Rising and, more recently, the risible Pathfinder which was a heavy metal album cover brought to life. Norse operas have clearly proven a tough sell. Robert Eggers’ brutal and immediate The Northman, however, a $90 million epic filmed mostly along the north coast of Ireland, has the power ...
