Pathfinder (2007) Movie Review
“A Viking boy is left behind after his clan battles a Native American tribe. Raised within the tribe, he ultimately becomes their savoir in a fight against the Norsemen. “
Hagar the Horrible would rather spend a night at home with his wife than watch Pathfinder, a mostly silent and shallow remake of a 1987 movie nominated for a Best Foreign Film Oscar. Just as Ghost (Karl Urban) searches for his identity, director Marcus Nispel’s narrative voice wanders aimlessly, haunted by his past. Having composed several hit music videos from the 1980s for bands like C&C Music Factory and Janet Jackson, Nispel’s colorless and choppy edits rob viewers of swordplay while the lack of character development reduces Ghost to a vengeful, static and unbelievable love interest of Starfire (Moon Bloodgood), who I immediately recognized as Korean. I was tempted to call this review Dances with Vikings but I thought better of it when I realized that wouldn’t be fair to Dances with Wolves, which was actually good.
Nispel borrows a mélange of scenes from other famous action movies. Ghost, sets booby traps and erupts from the water to cut a Viking in two, à la Rambo: First Blood. Imitating Schwarzenegger in Predator, he covers himself in mud and emerges from the ground to slay another clueless, lone Viking. Nispel even takes lines directly from Braveheart, “Run and you may live.†In one hilarious scene, Ghost is chased by a crew of incompetent vikings while tobaggoning down a snowy hill. As if he were being followed by a daft squadron of police stunt-drivers in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, Ghost systematically sheds his pursuers. I liked this scene the first time I saw it in Willow (1988), as played by Madmartigan (Val Kilmer). Russell Means (Last of the Mohicans) plays the role of Pathfinder. As the sage of the tribe, he dispatches a bear with a technique surely learned while under the tutelage of Sir Anthony Hopkins in The Edge, and, later, mercy-kills one of his braves being burned alive in the heir of Daniel Day Lewis in their shared film.
Sadly, this movie’s effluent bloodshed and lack of thoughtful language reduces it to nothing more than a forgettable quest for identity that is more lost than the Mars Pathfinder and Germans’ proven love for Native Americans and David Hasselhoff. (2/5 stars)
Popularity: 21% [?]
April 6th, 2007 at 12:05 am
Jimmy,
Thanks for the review. Nearly everyone is going to leave Pathfinder with a sense of disappointment—-and not necessarily at the end of it! You’ve entertainingly synthesized its many fallibilities into an integrated explanation for that letdown feeling I had as left the theater. Many of your references gave me that “Aha!†feeling, illuminating first occurrences of the many horrible déjà vus that I experienced as I endured the film.
I’m going to see the original when I get a chance. Perhaps we’re better off for Nilsen having been previously engaged with the burgeoning phenomenon of music videos during the original’s creation.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:12 am
I just got back from the movie theater. Wow this movie is garbage, I would rather have gone to a midget strip club than see this movie again. If you go to see this movie you will regret it, the Indians in this movie all talk perfect English like the came from Harvard.
I mostly went to see this movie because the preview said strong brutal violence throughout. WTF? are they serious no action no strong brutal violence.
DONT SEE THIS MOVIE IT SUCKED !