Pathfinder is the story of a young Viking boy left behind after a deadly battle between the Vikings and the Indians. He is found by an Indian woman and raised in the tribe. Year later, he has to defend the tribe from a group of Norseman intent on killing all the Indians in the settlement.
[rate 3]
My Thoughts on Pathfinder
- Vikings are brutal! I know that the Vikings of old were a blood thirsty lot but man, Pathfinder really rammed home that point what with all the sword fights, impalements, torture, etc. One Viking gets his eyes torn out and later after someone sews the eye socket, he cuts of the thread by ramming his sword over it. Ick.
Even Karl Urban’s character comes up with a number of ingenious ways to kill the Norsemen.
- I didn’t realize that Clancy Brown plays a Viking leader (Oh Earth 2 memories).
- Dialogue is at a minimum – characters could go minutes without saying a word. I didn’t catch Karl Urban’s character’s name (Ghost) until the credits ran! But with the action, I didn’t really feel the time go past.
- Speaking of action, even though the choreography of the fight scenes were good, the cameraman must have come from The Bourne Supremacy School of Film-making. The camera work was jerky and I had a hard time concentrating on the fight scenes to the point where I had to close my eyes to prevent a migraine attack from sensory overload.
- The Indian settlement is such a beautiful place. Pia and I were discussing if it would be nice to live there what with the cooler weather.
The mists over the mountains gave the place an ethereal feel, very lush and very peaceful but with all the Viking attacks, not a safe place to stay, even if there was a half-naked Karl Urban running about. - Pathfinder has one of the cheesiest scenes since I watched Ghost Rider.
It’s on the same level of cheese as Ghost Rider’s “I will fight fire with fire” with three finger pointing action and “He may my soul but he doesn’t have my spirit” (Pia says: isn’t that one and the same?).
The delivery of this particular line had us cracking up with laughter in the cinema and every single time we think about it. I won’t mention it here because Pia will be going deeper into that particular scene.
I enjoyed watching Pathfinder, inspite of the bad reviews I’ve read, and the shaky camera action. The one thing that I was most disappointed by was the ending. Up until that point I thought that Karl Urban’s character was going to become the tribe’s pathfinder (at least that what the it seemed what the movie as about).
But he doesn’t! I was looking at Pia and both of us had our mouths open, staring unbelievably at the the screen.
What’s the point of going on this journey with this guy as he struggles between the Indian and Viking culture, vengeance and peace, if there’s no pay off at the end. Sure he gets laid (which is only alluded to on screen, Poor Ghost) and he gets the woman but we know he wants to be the Pathfinder not Mr. Pathfinder.