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VIKING DESTINY
Director: David L.G. Hughes Cast: Anna Demetriou, Timo Nieminen, Paul Freeman, Laurence O'Fauarain, Ian Beattie, Terence Stamp, Murray McArthur, Kajsa Mohammar, Andrew Whipp MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:31 Release Date: 10/5/18 (limited) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 4, 2018 The plot for Viking Destiny is all over the place. It's as if writer/director David L.G. Hughes had an entire series of stories planned, only to find himself forced to cram all of the material into a 90-minute adventure movie. That's the generous theory. The less charitable view is that Hughes is simply hitting all of the story beats that he thinks are required for such a tale, and he hoped they would come together into a cohesive whole somehow. They don't, so what we get here is the story of a princess whose true identity is hidden, only to be revealed just before she's framed for the murder of her real, kingly father (played by Andrew Whipp). That sends Helle (Anna Demetriou) on an adventure into the wild. The process of this particular adventure looks and feels like the photogenic protagonist simply wandering around various natural locales (a beach, some hills, and a forest), without motive or purpose. The goal, according to the god Odin (Terence Stamp), is for her to survive, and that's it. Meanwhile, in a kingdom that has the distinct appearance of borrowed sets from a Renaissance fair, Helle's uncle Bard (Timo Nieminen), the king's real killer, assumes the throne and quickly goes insane by way of the whispers of the trickster god Loki (Murray McArthur). While her uncle does some terrible things (simply to establish that he's really bad), Helle eventually finds herself in a wooded utopia, populated by friendly travelers (There's a love triangle, too, which is rushed through as hastily as the other plot points). All of this leads to a battle that just sort of happens without any real build-up. The movie is somehow both generically straightforward and, because the screenplay doesn't bother to develop any of its story details, messy (unlike the cast's costumes, which remain in pristine, off-the-rack condition—no matter that they're introduced to plenty of muck and blood). Demetriou makes for a fine, strong heroine, with her magma-red hair, determined attitude and stare, and, apparently, a better understanding of the character than Hughes communicates to us. Otherwise, Viking Destiny looks like a fairly cheap production, cobbled together with whatever the filmmaking crew could find. That's forgivable, but there's no excuse for the story and its characters to possess the same sort of jury-rigged feel. Copyright © 2018 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
bloody violence, and some sexuality/nudity)
