This is the tale of a young boy sworn to avenge his father's death. Amleth is the boy who ends up growing into a heartless monster, killing and conquering without conscience. He meets a beautiful woman who is a sorceress of sorts and together they work to destroy the small farming kingdom of his father's killer.
As is the case with all Robert Eggers films, this doesn't fit into a typical Hollywood movie template. This is not a sword-and-sandals or cliched Viking adventure. It's slow-moving but gory and realistic. There are shocking moments of brutality, like women and children being picked from conquered villages to be turned into slaves for sale, work, or sex. There's a moment where we see a random child plucked from her mother and locked into a building with many others, which is then promptly set ablaze. In another scene, Queen Gudrum (Nicole Kidman) goes absolutely berserk in a moment that shocked me.
Surprisingly, there are supernatural and mythical elements introduced, and I would have to watch this film again to figure out how much they aided Ameth's quest for revenge.
This was probably my least favorite of Eggers's period Horror and Fantasy films ("The Witch" (2015), "The Lighthouse" (2019), but it's still impressive and engrossing.
Review by whitsbrainVIP 6BlockedParent2022-06-15T00:03:22Z
This is the tale of a young boy sworn to avenge his father's death. Amleth is the boy who ends up growing into a heartless monster, killing and conquering without conscience. He meets a beautiful woman who is a sorceress of sorts and together they work to destroy the small farming kingdom of his father's killer.
As is the case with all Robert Eggers films, this doesn't fit into a typical Hollywood movie template. This is not a sword-and-sandals or cliched Viking adventure. It's slow-moving but gory and realistic. There are shocking moments of brutality, like women and children being picked from conquered villages to be turned into slaves for sale, work, or sex. There's a moment where we see a random child plucked from her mother and locked into a building with many others, which is then promptly set ablaze. In another scene, Queen Gudrum (Nicole Kidman) goes absolutely berserk in a moment that shocked me.
Surprisingly, there are supernatural and mythical elements introduced, and I would have to watch this film again to figure out how much they aided Ameth's quest for revenge.
This was probably my least favorite of Eggers's period Horror and Fantasy films ("The Witch" (2015), "The Lighthouse" (2019), but it's still impressive and engrossing.