It isnвЂ™t the fault of Karl вЂEomer from Lord of the RingsвЂ™ Urban who plays the hero an abandoned Viking child brought up as one of their own by the American Natives who call him вЂGhostвЂ™ due to his pale skin. When the lights came up after 99 minutes of frankly dull Viking bashing antics my friend Ian and I were left shaking our heads and wondering how such a cool concept had managed to be so weak. But before you can say вЂwhy is all so muddled and dark?вЂ™ the action degenerates into a muddled dark mess and the plot loses its way (which is a bit ironic given the name of the film). It starts well enough and certainly gives a good revisiting of Norse warriors pillaging and slaughtering all who they come across. Set high on a narrow path on a sheer cliff face during a snowstorm, it's hard to know what's happening to whom, and even harder to care.If you love exciting action movies that feature heavy-duty battles, heroic against the odds bravery and cool mist shrouded visuals then youвЂ™d probably be keen to witness PathfinderвЂ¦ Unfortunately this blood soaked wannabe battle epic of Vikings versus Native Americans delivers nothing but crushing disappointment so donвЂ™t get your hopes up! That achievement, however, is obscured by the gloom that hangs over every scene, and it's anyone's guess what's happening in that final scene. To its credit, the film's costume design is extraordinary - the horned Viking armor really does look like something forged in hell - and Greg Blair's production design conveys a genuine sense of lives lived in balance with the environment: the Wampanoag huts and homes seem as much a part of the organic landscape as the trees that tower over them.

After convincing the defiant village braves that to stay and fight would only mean certain death, he returns to the forest, followed by Starfire (Moon Bloodgood), the woman he loves and the daughter of the tribe's pathfinder, to wreak his vengeance, halt the Viking rampage and discover his true destiny. Ghost narrowly escapes capture and reaches the neighboring villagers in time to warn them of an impending attack. The inner conflict between Viking and Wampanoag becomes a literal life-and-death struggle when Ghost returns from hunting to discover his entire village wiped out in yet another Norse raid. But he's forbidden to enter the elite Circle of the Braves until he has resolved his own identity crisis. Still tormented by visions of his bloody childhood, Ghost wants nothing more than to become a Wampanoag brave. Fifteen years later, the boy is a man (Karl Urban) whom the Wampanoag call 'Ghost' because of his complexion. Over the objections of several tribal leaders, who fear this child of 'the dragon men' will one day prove true to his blood and turn against them, the defiant woman adopts the pale, fair-haired child and raises him as her own. One afternoon, a woman (Michelle Thrush) from the native Wampanoag tribe stumbles across the abandoned hull of a wrecked Norse vessel among the shackled corpses on board she discovers a young boy (Burkely Duffield), the son of a fierce Viking warrior who was been left behind after refusing to participate in the carnage. Six hundred years before Christopher Columbus arrived in the 'New World,' Viking marauders routinely raided the shores of northern North America, brutally pillaging native villages and mercilessly slaughtering the 'savages' whose spears and arrows were no match for the armored Norsemen's steel and steeds. But it's undone by a murky palette, silly horror-movie cliches, dumb dialogue and a confusing climactic sequence. Loosely based on the 1987 Academy Award-nominated Norwegian film PATHFINDER (OFELAS), Marcus Nispel's brawny period adventure could have been an impressive-looking historical action adventure along the lines of APOCALYPTO or even 300.

Pathfinder movie reviews