I had high hopes for this movie, but... sigh.
On the bright side: it features really nice scenary and atmosphere, decent (though not historical correct) costumes and the camera work is most of the time solid, even good at times. Dutch films do get better the last two decades! But sadly these are the first and last positive aspects imho.
The dialogues are almost silly, mostly combined oneliners actually. And worse: they are confusing... aside from the fact that voices are unclear mosr of the time: the Franks speak English instead of French or even German? Scandinavians speaking English makes more sense (Modern English is partly Danish after the invasion of the vikings) but since the Franks also speak English in this movie its odd. Also silly: the castle in Reims. Overgrown with gras, nobility living in dungeons? Really? Lol! If you have to work with a low budget there must be other options..
Moving on: the main characters somehow never seem to touch you, they have flat personalitys and frankly I couldnt care less what happend to most of them. Redbad's role is one of the few exceptions, maybe Freya's as well. And why, WHY, do Dutch movies always need nudity, sex or rape scenes? Geez.
As for editing, it also irritated and confused me to no extend. Some scenes last for ever and ever while other scenes end before they serve their purpose. The movie desperatly needs cutting and re-editing, if only to get the battles right. Combine all of that that with way to much and loud bombastic music and the quality dropped even further. Maybe when cut to under 100 minutes it would have been better. Who knows. Instead it was turned into a mini series on television, making it even longer. Wow.
