Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Inclubabu Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

Skyler Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

Alexey Perepelkin Really? Spend a 1 500 000 000 RUB & 7 years to film that bullshit? What a joke, and not a piece of true with a historic moments! Seems director and writer never read a book about that time! Prince Vladimir of Novgorod seems to be an idiot with no power in hand, it is not possible to become a powerful person with such of behaviar as he!So do not recommend to watch it, at all!

Time Saver It is always difficult to make a movie based on historical facts. One must do a thorough research and properly put those facts in the movie. But one should also try to make that movie interesting and entertaining. Otherwise you'll get a protracted documentary.First of all, the title has almost nothing to do with the story. The story indeed follows the historical facts, but is told in such a messy way, full of illogical, irrational and unjustifiable events and decisions that it is tiresome to watch. You will find illogicality and complete idiocy even during the fight scenes. Moreover, this movie has no specific plot, no higher agenda and no epic moments, which all makes it difficult for the spectators to connect with the story.The story is practically about just one person and I kept wondering why it is so. Throughout the whole movie, the main character is completely and utterly useless, failing each and every challenge in front of him. Call it a paradox, but he somehow managed to fail even when he was winning. I wonder if director's decision was to purposely make this character so weak and clumsy. If it was, it's a bad decision because no one wants to watch a 2-hour movie where the main protagonist is a weakling and an idiot. If it wasn't, then the director has totally failed at his creation. I didn't "see" the main character. I didn't believe in him for one moment. He is not strong, he is not smart, he is not a great warrior, and not a great leader. So why is he the main character?I do not blame any of the actors, they really did their best. I blame the writers and the producers for ruining the potential this story had. Thus, I do not recommend this movie, there are far better ways to spend your time than watching this nonsense.

jankovskijartiom First of all, this movie has not much related to vikings, but rather a story about Kievan Rus and Vladimir who moved to the North in order not to fight his brother.. However, over the influence of his brother war fighters seeking revenge, he is forced to come back and kill his brother and try to lead the region.It's a story about Vladimir, pagonist and barbaric Russia of that century, where no one could trust each other. Over time Vladimir finds the light and truth in Christianity, which was shown to him by Fiodor and Irina and finally acknowledges his mistakes. It was filmed in the typical style of Russians adding some human touch and soul into the film, over simple Hollywood "plastic" characters in the most action movies.Main issue if this film, is that film producers, had too much material to put into short period of time. It would be better to split the film into 2 parts and let the viewer explore all the characters in more detail. In addition, fighting scenes required many more people as for me it seemed too few people fighting and needed thousands to make it more epic and realistic.Overall, very good try to create a new interpretation of historical events.

David Newell The film starts with a stunning, thrilling aurochs hunt in a snowy forest, which soon devolves into mayhem. And I thought, this must be just a one off, they cannot repeat a scene this visually and emotionally powerful. But the next one is just as gorgeous and disturbing. And the next, all the way until the end. Yet this is not just a collection of individual impressive scenes, it all melds together into a seamless, escalating narrative of personal redemption, of one man's passage from darkness onto light.A film like this, heavily based on real, historically sourced events, always runs the danger of predictability for someone like me who is very familiar with the history and archaeology of the era. But here the script, although only depicting events firmly rooted in the actual primary sources, reinterprets these sources using the very reasonable assumption that history is written by the victors. Thus, a main villain of the chronicles is shown in a much more sympathetic light, and the main character is not shown as all-conquering hero but as a weak, conflicted human being - which makes him infinitely more relatable. The titular "Viking" narrator, on the other hand, is portrayed as a blood-thirsty savage, which is what I would expect he was. Still, as far as I can tell - and trust me, I know the subject quite well - the script remains firmly supported by the historical record down to its smallest details. The only slip I could really find was the presence of a dromon upstream from the Dnieper rapids. The scriptwriter does merge two competing historical versions of a pivotal event into a third, intermediate one which not attested in the histories, but I honestly do not mind this.The first thing that impresses is obviously the gorgeousness and variety of the landscapes. Yet the sets, the costumes, the props are just as impressive - in their detail, their historical authenticity and the gritty realism the exude. I saw nothing that didn't seem in place and most things I saw had actual archaeological parallels. This all creates a breathtaking atmosphere, beautifully illustrating the leitmotif of the movie, namely the contrast between northern darkness and southern light. The casting is very good, and the acting is passionate yet earnest. Of course there is not a great amount of talking, fitting with the depiction of a simple, brutal time. The acting of the foreign-language actors, on the other hand, is a little bit stilted and hammy. All in all, the film makes the similarly named "Vikings" series look and feel in all respects like a high-school play. In terms of emotional power I would put "Viking" right up there with the Kurosawa masterpiece "Ran".The film has unfortunately got a lot of bad reviews in Russia from small-minded chauvinists, who presumably think that all their ancestors were silver-clad knights living in gleaming palaces and speaking exactly the same language they do. And this is very unfortunate, since this is as close to a Russian national epic as you can get, a great tale of the very beginning of the Russian nation. In essence it tells of the time of the joining of different peoples - Norse and Slav - Balt and Finn - into a single, greater one, with Greco-Roman civilization as the mortar.