The Lost Viking

Another movie to ride that Vikings craze that I almost entirely missed out on the last couple of years. Not just after having seen the Vikings TV show (but I reckon even more so now), this feels a bit underwhelmed. Still if you like low budget movies and are willing to cut this some slack, you can be entertained by and with this.

There is action, there is mystery and the movie does look good (filming wise, location, costumes and all that). I've seen worse movies and while this may stretch your patience a bit thin because of the pacing, it still is at least decently made

Dialogue that insults your intelligence, a plot that is laughable, Roman armor on Saxons, shield wall weapons inexplicable used in melee, and acting that is insanely bad? This is a packing of every conceivable bad element into one film.

Yeah, I'm a viking nerd, and a sucker for heroic adventure epics. So much so, that I'm even willing to give b-grade movies the benefit of the doubt.

Enter The Lost Viking, one of many low budget Viking themed crapfests released in 2010s.

The story is about some guy who's family is suddenly attacked and killed by some rival cief (I guess, no idea why it all happened, very little explanation is given). The young male protaginsts flees, tries to survive in the woods, meets a monk, as well as a bunch of blue painted hippies, and then is thrown into some type of tournament by a guy in Roman armour (yes, in viking age Britain !!! Was he a Roman ? Or an Anglo-Saxon with a strong affinity for the Romans ??? Your guess is as good as mine).

In the first 40 mninutes or so, little if nothing happens, other than some attempt at drama and an annoying piano tune that's played to death. Seriously, you can just fast forward the first half of the movie and not miss anyhting. I did, then I noticed the rest wasn't really worth watching either.

Go walk your dog instead, it' s far more entertaining.

I knew it was a low budget movie, I did not care about the disgusting costume design or the poor acting, I did not care about the terrible director or even the film edition...the worst thing about this movie is the photography, it's probably the most awful director of photography work I have ever seen, I couldn't watch more than 10 minutes of this movie, don't waste your time on this.

Like most low budget indies tackling historical/viking dramas I started this film fully intending to stop after the first horrible ten minutes, but no. This film turned out to be a very happy surprise. Good writing, decent acting and (given the low budget) extremely well done fighting scenes, make "The Lost Viking" is well worth the watch.

The story is a typical Joseph Campbell Hero's Quest we've seen in countless other films but then, it is one of our more popular myths which all depends on the telling. In this case, instead of the cliched revenge cycle most of these movies follows, the writers have adopted a more intelligent and original approach in which, through his tribulations, our hero evolves into a more thoughtful and philosophical person which is far more satisfying than the typical "he becomes king and they live happily ever after" cliche.

If viking/medieval dramas are your thing, you could do far worse than this little gem.