Pathfinder (2007)

recommended

Perfect cast and a good story

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

brutally torn apart by the official critics, Pathfinder is both my favorite Karl Urban performance and a classic story of the outsider finding his place and his identity in this world through courage and companionship. Anyone who can't identify with this plot has been through too little trouble in this world and little self-searching. It may be true that there is little originality, but has it not also been said there there are no truly new stories to be told in this world? and that was said many centuries ago. not the best film to be made in modern times, but far, far from the worst and there are more highly rated films and TV that are vastly worst.

Marcus Nispel 's Pathfinder is a stark, stylized glimpse far into the past, with the story straying from a straightforward, fact based approach and venturing on a dark, primal voyage of near supernatural viking warriors. Way before North America was colonized by Europeans, fearsome Nordic warriors showed up and laid waste to the land, pillaging and destroying the homes of the Natives. On one of these excursions, they leave one of their own behind, a young child who grows up with the Natives as one of their own, and is given the name 'Ghost'. He grows up to to be a warrior, and when the Vikings return to finish what they started years before, he turns against his own kind to protect the villagers who are now his family, and begins a personal war of vicious carnage and furious retribution on them. Karl Urban plays him with the virile intensity and unmistakable frown he has become known for, and is almost like a force of nature, hiding amongst the lush, dampened foliage, a dormant piece of the terrain until his enemy stalks past, and he is galvanized into action, hacking and slashing his way through an army of spectral marauders like a juggernaut. Russell Means (RIP:() plays the chieftain of the settlement with his usual gravitas, and stunning Moon Bloodgood makes an impression as well. Urban's sleek, dog like heroics go head to head with the brutish, blunt force trauma dealt out by Gunnar, the chief of the Viking army. He is a growling monster played by an unrecognizable Clancy Brown, adorned with a flowing beard and a demonic, nightmarish helmet. Brown played the evil Kurgan in the classic Highlander, and there are shades of that character here, a relentless pursuer without mercy or reason. Much of the film happened at a frenzied pace, leaving you to catch up on the action which comes at a frenzied pace, and is shot in dark, cold colors that give it a striking comic book style edge. Critics slammed this one out of the gate; don't listen to an idiotic word they say. This is one icy blast of sword and snow violence with breathtaking cinematography, refreshingly inventive violence and a dialogue lite/atmosphere heavy vibe of primal mystery and savage deeds amidst the snowy forests of a land yet undiscovered.

A Viking boy is discovered by Native Americans after his longboat is shipwrecked. He is adopted into the tribe after the Viking marauders are massacred. He is given the name Ghost (Karl Urban) and grows up using his Viking father's sword. He falls in love Starfire (Moon Bloodgood) who is the daughter of a friendly tribe chieftain Pathfinder (Russell Means). Then his tribe is attacked by new Viking raiders led by Gunnar (Clancy Brown).This is Conan the Barbarian in Native North America. It's dark, brutal and messy. I can see where the graphic novel is coming from but the translation to the screen is not compelling. I do like the crazy Viking style and the bloody gore which I'm guessing comes from the comics. The dark brooding mood and music do wear thin. Director Marcus Nispel, who is more known for his music video work, does badly with the narrative. It's not compelling. Karl Urban is a great actor but overall the acting from everyone is poor. This is a dark bloody mess from an intriguing graphic novel idea.

Pathfinder ought to be a terrible film. It's about as historically accurate as Braveheart and completely unoriginal, being essentially a remake of the (very good) Norwegian film of the same name, with bits of First Blood, Kato's Land and Fuqua's King Arthur thrown in. But if you can stop yourself going "Dude, Vikings didn't have cavalry!"* and suchlike, you can enjoy it as a straightforward action/fantasy film. It's the usual story of the bad guys who burn the village and the hero who stops them, which means it has funky barbarian costumes, cool weapons** and traps, spectacular landscapes and of course lots of fight scenes, and the fight scenes are done really well. As a bonus, it's beautifully filmed.* OK, Vikings did sometimes use horses as transport, but they didn't take them on their ships; they stole them when they arrived, and in America there would have been no horses to steal. ** Including one-handed flails, which didn't appear until the late Middle Ages.