Pathfinder Reviews

To be honest, I had absolutely no idea what to expect from the damned thing and I was attracted by this movie mainly because it had a catchy title and a cool poster. Well, when I discovered that the damned thing was directed by Marcus Nispel, I have to admit that I wasn't expecting much after all. Indeed, except for this movie, the guy has delivered only some remakes so far which wasn’t really a good sign. And indeed, the end-result was rather disappointing. I mean , the concept (indians vs vikings) actually did have some potential and the general look of the movie was actually pretty good but pretty much everything else was just so weak. Indeed, once again with Nispel, the directing was way below average. For example, the Vikings seemed to be coming from Middle Earth and, even more annoying, everytime there was some fighting scenes, there was always some lame slow-motion. Seriously, what a cheap gimmick! Furthermore, the acting was just weak but, on the other hand, the actors were not helped by the weak dialogues. Anyway, to conclude, I was seen worse movies but it was still a very average flick and it is not really worth a look.

Pathfinder ended up being an appalling movie, and one of the worst of 2007. Truth be told I told myself I would see this one despite it looking mediocre...but it turned out to be quite terrible. For the duration of the movie, it's nothing more than a poor excuse to showcase many different ways for heads to be cut off and people getting killed with swords or axes.

The very little evidence of a plot that I picked up on had something to do with a young boy named Ghost (Urban) who is abandoned as a child. Raised by a Native American tribe, he proves to be quite a skilled warrior. When the Norsemen arrive on American shores with intentions of killing all villagers in sight, Ghost proves a saviour to the people.

From there it's completely predictable and the shallow plot completely disappears within the extreme mindless violence.

I found most aspects of the film to be dull - the colour grading made the film difficult to watch, the blood effects looked bleak and the typical use of slo-mo and shaky cam during battles makes things extraordinarily hard to make out.

Karl Urban doesn't deliver many lines, but when he does it seems he makes no effort to hide his true voice. He sounds more like an American man rather than a Viking. The other performances weren't in the least bit memorable, nor did they deserve to be memorable. All characters are clothed the same, all characters speak the same. There's no distinction between characters, and therefore this non-sentimentality means that when someone is killed it may look cool, but I honestly never cared. Some of the action is intense, but it's useless if one doesn't care about what's going on. Without character development (of which there is none in this movie) how are we supposed to give a damn about anyone?

Pathfinder is an example of filmmakers using everything they can to craft an action movie that adolescents will delight over due to the extreme violence, but there's nothing here for anyone else. Give it a miss!