This review of “The Northman” was first published on April 11, 2022.
Sharpen the swords and prepare the funeral pyres: A Viking is out for bloody revenge in “The Northman,” and the corpses keep piling higher and higher in this trippy action epic from director and co-writer Robert Eggers (“The Lighthouse”).
Written in collaboration with Icelandic author Sjón (“Lamb,” “Dancer in the Dark”), “The Northman” is gory, muddy, hallucinatory — and intensely entertaining. An examination of the way that violence begets violence, and a study of how a life devoted to single-minded hatred and vengeance can lead to uncomfortable truths, this is a movie that lives up to every saga comic books and metal bands ever spun about the brutal conquerors of yore.