And so, this scion of art-house royalty has much to prove in a starring role that borrows heavily from “Gladiator” and pretty much every Mel Gibson movie (but mostly “Braveheart”). Though he’s bulked up significantly since his comparably physical turn in 2016’s largely unnecessary “The Legend of Tarzan,” muscles only go so far to compensate for the strange emptiness behind young Skarsgård’s eyes.
Alexander’s as handsome a star as Sweden has produced, but sorely lacks the charisma to carry a movie of this scale - rumored to have cost $90 million. That it’s ultimately rather dull and hardly any fun is almost beside the point.īlame that largely on Alexander Skarsgård, son of towering European talent Stellan (“Breaking the Waves”). Teaming with local novelist Sjón, Eggers - a visionary director with a preternatural interest in history, as evidenced by his rigorously detail-oriented horror movies “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” - also draws from the region’s rich folklore, looking to the sagas of Iceland, as well as the same Scandinavian legend that inspired Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” to mount the classiest Vikesploitation epic you can imagine, complete with a doomsday Björk cameo.
Iceland plays itself in Robert Eggers’ “ The Northman,” a brutal tale of 10th-century Viking revenge that makes evocative use of far more than just the scenery to be found in this stunning Nordic outpost. Nowhere else on Earth looks like Iceland, which is why so many productions over the past decade - from “Interstellar” and “Oblivion” to “Game of Thrones” and “Thor” - have used its peerless primordial terrain to represent alternate dimensions and far-off planets. Fields glow kryptonite green against volcanic black soil, while not-so-distant mountains smoke and spew hot red lava above the heads of hardy sheep.
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