Viking Destiny - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Viking Destiny

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score: ​

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Movie
Oh boy, I guess Wonder Woman has sparked a new generation of female super heroines. Some of them good, and some of them….well… like Viking Destiny. Viking Destiny tries to craft a new heroine out of Norse lore, but also at the budget of your average late night SyFy flick as well. The film is cheap, cheesy, full of bad acting, poor special effects, and somehow this film got released AND was sent to the PR firms for us to review? I’m not sure who was being payed, or how this came to be, but Viking Destiny is a truly awful film that only has one thing going for it. The filmmaker’s trying to create strong female hero to rally behind. At the moment though, the only thing that is being rallied behind is the liquor stores as viewers of the film have to find something to wash the memory away.

Viking Destiny goes straight into with an overly dramatic birthing sequence straight out of Conan the Barbarian (the remake). We have a queen like character giving birth midst the heat of battle, pauses momentarily to say something romantic to her husband the king, and then goes back to birthing the child while her husband slays the enemies around her. This child happens to be new heroine of this film, one Helle (Anna Demetriou), who will rise to become the quintessential butt kicker later on in the film. Her father, King Asmund (Andrew Whipp) is disappointed that his heir is a female, and sends her to live with her uncle for her formative years.

Helle lives in subterfuge for until her adult years, and is only broken out when Odin (Terence Stamp) comes poofing in with a puff of smoke to giver her some “guidance” now and again. Amusingly enough, the god of mischief himself Loki (Murray McArthur, sadly not Tom Hiddleston) is also around, stirring up mischief for the soon to be queen and gleefully leading men down the path to destruction. Helle’s life is turned upside down when she finds out that her benevolent uncle is not so benevolent after all. He wants to kill off the two heirs to the throne (including Helle, who he has raised) and take over the crown himself. Unfortunately for him (and the king, and a host of other random bad guys who appear for little reason) Helle is a goddess with a blade, and is able to stand her ground against even the biggest and baddest of viking warriors. Luckily she is aided by a group of hippie forest dwellers who want to help her, and a group of vikings who want her to be queen.

Ugggg. I’m not sure where to begin. Well, I’ll start with the vodka and move on to whiskey to undergo this mind wipe…..ohhhhhhhh. Sorry, I meant where to being with this review. My bad. Well, Viking Destiny is almost intentionally comical at times. It feels like the Ray Harryhausen stop motion films of the 60s, with the characters almost winking and nodding at the camera as they go on. Sadly it becomes blatantly obvious that there is no intentional comedy here. It’s very wince worthily unintentional. The sets are poorly constructed and the whole film just feels “fake”. Even when we have a live action scene where the actors are in a real forest or beach and not in front of a set, things just feel even faker.

I shan’t say that the film has NO redeeming value. Helle is a decent enough sword master and some of the fight scenes are actually pretty cool from a DTV stand point. Sadly, past that, the movie just dives straight into the depths of awful and swims around in that much until the credits roll. The film tries desperately to give us a feminist style store, with Helle able to do everything, but we still have whole sections where she is forced to rely on others to get things done, and sit in the background till it finishes. Not to mention the hilariously bored looks on the faces of Terence Stamp and Murray McArthur, as even the god’s can’t get a whole lot of enjoyment from the flick.




Rating:

Rated R for bloody violence, and some sexuality/nudity




Video:

Viking Destiny doesn’t have any information listed on the cameras or master resolution used for the home video release, but from what digging I could find and by talking with several other reviewers it seems that the ubiquitous Arri Alexa cameras were used to digitally shoot the film. The film itself looks quite good most of the time, and strangely enough shifts in texture and tone throughout the film. The opening shot of the film looks like it’s trying to imitate a gritty and grainy look, but other sections are rather flt and digitally drab. Then there’s the forest sequences that literally pop off the screen with crystal clarity and brightly saturated greens, reds and earth tones. General clarity is still quite good though, and outside of the banding and low light digital noise, Viking Destiny maintains a goodly amount of detail and a sharp enough look to please most people.





Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is competent, but never exactly very heavily used as the low budget means not a whole lot of people on screen at any one time. Usually there is only 1 to 2 people in a battle, and even the end battle has no more than a couple dozen (not a whole lot of extra hiring going on I guess). Surround presence is fairly limited, but the clashing of blades and a few crashing rocks make for a moderately good back presence. The dialog is clean and well placed up front though, and the score flows easily enough. It’s not going to be a wild and exciting track, but it handles the limited sound design rather well and doesn’t introduce any problems into the mix.







Extras:

• One True Heir: A Warrior's Destiny
• Of Gods, Women and Men: The Cast
• Strength from Within: Staging the Battles

Final Score: ​

Half of the time I was watching Viking Destiny I was trying to place where I had seen Anna Demetriou before, and then it hit me. She looks very similar to Saoirse Ronan with red head, just without the acting chops. Yeah, Viking Destiny is not exactly a film that I’d pop in the Blu-ray player when I’m bored. In fact, I’d probably turn the film off after about 10 minutes even on Netflix. The Blu-ray itself is competently done, with solid video and audio, but the typical anemic extras that go along with DTV flicks. Personally, unless you have a vested interest in the film or the actors, just skip it.



Technical Specifications:

Starring: Terence Stamp, Martyn Ford, Paul Freeman, Will Mellor, Victoria Broom, Ian Beattie, Andrew Whipp, Murray McArthur, Anna Demetriou, Laurence O'Fuarain
Directed by: David L.G. Hughes
Written by: David L.G. Hughes
Aspect Ratio: 2,39:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish
Studio: Lionsgate
Rated: R
Runtime: 91 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: December 11th, 2018

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• Michael Scott
• May 11, 2017

Recommendation: Skip It

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I will skip it. Too bad they didn't try to make it look like the "Vikings" series that is on History channel.

 

[phillihp23]

Thanks for the review....seen it in the redbox but didn't grab my attention. Guess I didn't miss much.