Pathfinder
R
* out of ****
2007

Well.... the first thing I have to say about this one was that I was severely disappointed. Severely. Disappointed. I mean, I figured a movie featuring a conflict between Vikings and native americans starring Karl Urban (notably gorgeous actor of Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Riddick fame) would be terrible, but fantastically entertaining in the way that bad action movies are. Wow, was I wrong. >_<


Premise: Peaceful, secluded, happy indians are set upon by gigantic, brutish vikings who plunder, pillage, rape, and massacre their way through an indian village. Lo and behold, they leave one of their own behind because the boy refused to kill an indian girl! How noble! Taken in by the tribe and raised as one of their own, when the "dragon men" return they have a nasty surprise waiting for them. Throw in the terminally stupid, absolutely useless love interest (played by actress Moon Bloodgood O_o) and you have a plot with the makeup of a C movie. Or a D movie, for that matter.


It could have been fun. Really, it could have. But it wasn't. Right from the beginning credits, the movie feels choppy, like someone got trigger happy in the editing room, then tried to paste the scenes back together. The acting is terrible, and when I say terrible, I mean terrible. The script just leaves you laughing, and not in a good way. And to make things ten thousand times worse, the movie seems to actually take itself seriously. O_O I mean.... WHY?


So Bob and I were laughing through the whole thing, snickering behind our hands as we tried to keep the noise level down to a minimum while watching comically dramatic facial expressions from Karl Urban, ridiculously stupid movies from the indian braves, serious intonations from the indian chief "Pathfinder", and the cringeworthy foolishness of Love Interest, whose name wasn't even worth remembering, and of course the bad acting in general.


All that being said, the only reason I didn't completely bomb this movie was that there were a couple fairly decent action scenes, although even those were peppered with unnecessary slow motion moments.





I have one thing left to share with you. The avalanches at the end. HYSTERICAL!