What is it with Europeans? They, more than any other racial group, have considered it their right, throughout history, to go to other lands with the express intention of conquering and subsequently destroying the lives and cultures of the indigenous people. Not always content to simply march in to neighbouring countries, their ambitions were often much more far-reaching and the arrival of seaworthy ships made it a practical reality.
The land we now know as America was one such victim of European expansionism, mainly at the hands of the British, Spanish and French. With their greed and diseases they managed to destroy what was one of the greatest nations on the planet – something its new inhabitants have continued to do in earnest, while further spreading the imperialist attitude into other nations. A long time before that batch of Europeans “successfully” routed the New World, history shows that another group, from cold northern Europe, visited and ultimately failed to colonise that great land. The Vikings, so familiar to everyone who did history at school, for their cow-horn helmets more than anything else, were those invaders. PATHFINDER, a new film from German-born commercials director Marcus Nispel (best known for his remake of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) turns scarce historical information into an action-packed boys-own adventure story that is almost completely free of any of the political or anthropological issues previously mentioned.
Based on a 1987 Oscar-winning Norwegian film OFELAS, it transfers the scene to America and the first arrival of the Vikings and the young survivor of a shipwreck who is adopted by the local Wampanoag people, where he is given the name Ghost and raised as one of their own. Fifteen years on and another boat full of Viking warriors arrives and starts to ravage the tribe’s village in the manner for which they became legendary. Ghost, played by Karl Urban (LORD OF THE RINGS, DOOM) is now a grown man, if not quite a fully-fledged warrior. He escapes the annihilation, as does Starfire (Moon Bloodgood), the woman he loves, and her shaman father, the Pathfinder, played by Russell Means, They seek to revenge the deaths of the tribe by using their local knowledge and ingenuity to defeat the armoured invaders and lead the surviving villagers to safety.
As I said before, this is a real boys own adventure and I know as a kid I would have loved to have watched a film about Vikings against the Indians (supporting the Indians of course), as I am sure there are many kids today that would like to see it. Its 15 certificate will mean most of them won’t be able to. It gets the 15 rating for the violence, which is both brutal and visceral in equal measure, the stuff most boys aren’t really too bothered by – and there isn’t a lot of kissy-kissy stuff either. Of course the girl does fall over at the crucial moment for the hero to have to rescue her, but Bloodgood’s character is also a strong warrior who manages to hold her own against the invaders.
The Vikings look suitably scary and don’t wear those silly cow-horn helmets that Hagar made so popular. With Clancy Brown, best remembered as Kurgan in HIGHLANDER, as the Viking leader it manages to complete the cast of stereotypical characters, not that there is anything essentially wrong with that. The film is not really pretending to be anything more than a big action, comic book adventure flick, and if that’s what its goals are it certainly achieves them. It’s blokish, escapist, adventure entertainment and should be enjoyed as nothing more or you will find yourself questioning its logic or lack of reality (why didn’t the loincloth wearing Ghost suffer from hyperthermia swimming under a frozen lake? And so on). If you want to see something more worthy there are plenty of other films on release.
PATHFINDER is showing nationally from April 20th through Twentieth Century Fox.