"The Northman": "Are you not entertained?"

A critical look at a film that’s not quite an action epic nor a thoughtful meditation on myth, though it clearly hopes to be both.

The Northman (2022)

There’s a respectable pedigree to Robert Eggers’ film The Northman, which ascends through Shakespeare’s Hamlet to arrive at the Scandinavian tale of Amleth. By the time this latest iteration of the old story has arrived on our screens, it bears only a passing similarity to its forebears. Where Amleth of the tale is cunning and complex, The Northman gives us a broody and bulky hero portrayed by Alexander Skarsgård, who offers a beefy chest and empty eyes, but very little interiority.

The Northman dispenses with any bildungsroman filler, skipping over Amleth’s journey from son of a murdered king to berserker warrior, confident that we as viewers have seen enough movies to get the gist of this transition. Grown-up Amleth is dragged towards the only path his character can take – revenge on the uncle who killed his father (played by Ethan Hawke) and who captured his mother (Nicole Kidman). From here, The Northman sets off to show us what a Robert Eggers’ version of Gladi…