See You in Valhalla (2015) Reviews

Initial Thought: I have seen some pretty good Viking lore recently. That's mostly from watching Vikings episodes. From the title I was kind of expecting more Viking stuff. The poster obviously shows that it is not what I'm expecting. It will be interesting to see a take on how modern "Vikings" or followers of Norse mythology go about things.

Characters/Acting: I notice a few of the guys here have the look of Vikings which is pretty cool. There are quite a good batch of young recognizable Hollywood here. Sarah Hyland must have gotten along really well with the brother duo to be the lead after her small role in April Apocalypse. This family is horribly dysfunctional and there are hardly any likeable members among them. Even the daughter of the eldest brother treats people like crap. I think the only characters I cared for were Makewi, Barry, and Woody. The acting is pretty good except for Sarah Hyland for some reason. It seemed like she was taking on something she isn't yet ready for. I think her skills for the genre of drama are not what they should be for the kind of film this is meant to be. I think Emma Bell is supposed to be the "comedy" of this movie, but she really just comes off as just annoying.

Story: It's another of those dysfunctional family movies, but we get a perspective of a family with Nordic heritage. I guess the whole "dark comedy" comes from the perspective that a lot of the characters can be eccentric. It isn't really a funny movie at all other than that. Okay so I know ohana is a real Hawaiian term that means family, but I instantly thought of Lilo & Stitch and chuckled when a character actually mentioned it. There are so many things that happen here. It's such a huge spiral of chaos. Movies like this definitely make most families feel better about the issues they have. The ending was pretty interesting.

Directing/Writing: The director and writer are a brother duo that haven't really worked on too much. They did however do a really awesome movie called April Apocalypse. That was a fresh and funny take on the zombie scenario. This is on a whole other spectrum of creativity. It's really emotional, but at times it's kind of strange. The way everyone bad mouths each other is really messed up, but I think they all do really well portraying the script.

Final Thought: I felt some things were lacking here. Some closure would have been good. Why didn't Johana tell them her baby wasn't aborted? Where was Faye in the end if she cared so much for Woody? Is the dad still okay or not since they were all dressed in black it kind of took away from the Viking ceremony they did. It was an okay watch. It could have used some work here and there.