The problem I've had with Robert Eggers is that he tries too hard. The Northman was no different. Not being a fan of the last two movies I only saw this because I am very into Vikings and there aren't a whole lot of movies to watch.
The story isn't bad but the way everything is done is. And none of it feels natural, it all feels like a director going against ever instinct he has to make something "different." When the end result isn't different, it's taking things from original movies that broke new ground naturally. This seems to do them for all the wrong reasons. I think Eggers looks at everything and thinks, "Well that might have been enjoyable but it was too conventional," or something. Ethan Hawks death speech is so long. It doesn't need to be that long. The point of the scene is for him to be killed by his brother. Not to showcase his acting or the dialogue. But Eggers is in love with the words that he writes. I would guess that he won't cut something because her loves the line, even if he knows it slows down the movie.
The fight scenes weren't great and they weren't bad but they suffered from long takes. I know Eggers thought that he we so cool to have these done in one take because you don't normally see that. To separate himself from overly edited action scenes he did them in one. But why do they do long takes in action scenes? To be unconventional or to add to the intensity? When Leo gets attacked by the bear in the Revenant and it's one take, that added to the intensity. But here it's obvious that characters are staging themselves into position, bad guys are waiting to get killed and the fights aren't as cool as they can be because when you edit you create something real out of something fake. Movie magic is what it's called. Sure CG can really help add things to make this better but the problem here is that the CG sucked. At the end when he cuts the head off of his uncle, the body looks so bad. So so bad...
Chapters in a movie never works. Why do they do this? It's always stupid. One it stops the movie and two it tells you what's going to happen. This is truly pretentious. They are trying to make their movies like books? I don't know.
The last fight, that was inspired by Revenge of the Sith was so contrived. Okay, so he's going up the mountain, then we come into the fight half way through, he's bloody, they're naked and have been fighting for a while. This was such a contrived moment, "We'll start halfway into the fight, no one will expect that." Is it different? Yes. Is it good? No. It's jarring and forces you to think when you should be caught up in the drama of the movie especially when it's the climax. There could have really been some good emotions happening there. But no, Eggers again had to have his head so far up his ass that he couldn't tell you what time of day it is.
This movie looked cheap and relyed on CG to enhance the scope, which could have worked but they didn't have the money to make this happen.
Unfortunately Eggers is allowed to make more movies when he's the type of guy that should be taking your ticket at the theater. He drives me nuts because he works very hard to make his movies like this for the most contrived reasons. He'll keep striving to make Apocalypse Now or something great but he doesn't have the talent, skill, instincts, or knowledge to make that happen.
The story isn't bad but the way everything is done is. And none of it feels natural, it all feels like a director going against ever instinct he has to make something "different." When the end result isn't different, it's taking things from original movies that broke new ground naturally. This seems to do them for all the wrong reasons. I think Eggers looks at everything and thinks, "Well that might have been enjoyable but it was too conventional," or something. Ethan Hawks death speech is so long. It doesn't need to be that long. The point of the scene is for him to be killed by his brother. Not to showcase his acting or the dialogue. But Eggers is in love with the words that he writes. I would guess that he won't cut something because her loves the line, even if he knows it slows down the movie.
The fight scenes weren't great and they weren't bad but they suffered from long takes. I know Eggers thought that he we so cool to have these done in one take because you don't normally see that. To separate himself from overly edited action scenes he did them in one. But why do they do long takes in action scenes? To be unconventional or to add to the intensity? When Leo gets attacked by the bear in the Revenant and it's one take, that added to the intensity. But here it's obvious that characters are staging themselves into position, bad guys are waiting to get killed and the fights aren't as cool as they can be because when you edit you create something real out of something fake. Movie magic is what it's called. Sure CG can really help add things to make this better but the problem here is that the CG sucked. At the end when he cuts the head off of his uncle, the body looks so bad. So so bad...
Chapters in a movie never works. Why do they do this? It's always stupid. One it stops the movie and two it tells you what's going to happen. This is truly pretentious. They are trying to make their movies like books? I don't know.
The last fight, that was inspired by Revenge of the Sith was so contrived. Okay, so he's going up the mountain, then we come into the fight half way through, he's bloody, they're naked and have been fighting for a while. This was such a contrived moment, "We'll start halfway into the fight, no one will expect that." Is it different? Yes. Is it good? No. It's jarring and forces you to think when you should be caught up in the drama of the movie especially when it's the climax. There could have really been some good emotions happening there. But no, Eggers again had to have his head so far up his ass that he couldn't tell you what time of day it is.
This movie looked cheap and relyed on CG to enhance the scope, which could have worked but they didn't have the money to make this happen.
Unfortunately Eggers is allowed to make more movies when he's the type of guy that should be taking your ticket at the theater. He drives me nuts because he works very hard to make his movies like this for the most contrived reasons. He'll keep striving to make Apocalypse Now or something great but he doesn't have the talent, skill, instincts, or knowledge to make that happen.