Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageErik the Viking (1989)
Director: Terry Jones
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Terry Jones' post-Python frolic, inspired by his own Norse saga children's book, is not a funny film, and neither well-directed nor exciting. Robbins plays a kind of lovelorn gentle giant, dismayed by the daily drudgery of conquest, pillage and rape, who seeks enlightenment from a cave-dwelling seer/hag (Kitt). This is the Dark Age of Ragnarok, she tells him, which will end in an orgy of fighting and destructiveness. He thus sets out with a long-ship full of squabbling warriorswith names like Sven the Berserk and Thorfinn Skullsplitter, to awaken the gods with the Horn Resounding so that they may usher in the new era of peace and light. In pursuit are snivelling Loki (Sher), maker of weapons, and the very-evil-indeed Halfdan the Black (Cleese). There's a certain precocious schoolboy mentality at work in the film: an indulgent delight in making fantasies come to life. Its disarming mix of blood-and-muck realism, researched detail, and soaring wish-fulfillment, wonder and irreverence, does provide lots of small incidental pleasures.Author: WH
Cast & crew
Director: Terry Jones
Producer: John Goldstone
Cast: Tim Robbins, Mickey Rooney, Eartha Kitt, Terry Jones, Imogen Stubbs, John Cleese, Tsutomu Sekine, Antony Sher, Gary Cady, Charles McKeown, Tim McInnerny, John Gordon Sinclair, Freddie Jones, Jim Broadbent full cast
Genre(s): Fantasy
Duration: 108 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 50 greatest monster movies
As Joe Johnston’s long-awaited reinvention of Universal’s howl-at-the-moon classic ‘The Wolfman’ hits cinemas, Time Out lists our 50 favourite cinematic stalkers, growlers, slashers and biters.
Mark Kermode: A life in film
Dave Calhoun chats to Britain's most outspoken film critic and pundit ahead of the release of his memoirs
Has Ricky Gervais gone all serious?
The trailer to 'Cemetery Junction' suggests that its writer-director is suppressing his funny bone.
The genius of Roman Polanski
Ahead of his new film, 'The Ghost', we must forget the media circus and remember the artist pleads Wally Hammond
Oscars 2010: The nominees
Tom Huddleston offers his acute analysis on the list of nominees for the 2010 Academy Awards
Rotterdam 2010: Geoff Andrew's report
Geoff Andrew finds rich leftfield pickings at the 2010 Rotterdam Film Festival
Can Tom Ford cut it as a director?
After ten years as creative head of Gucci, Tom Ford has directed his first movie. Nina Caplan meets him
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
So here it is… Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this.
2009: The year in film
We look back at the best movies of 2009 and pick out some of our favourite lists, features and interviews.
What do you think?
Post your review now