REVIEW - "Pathfinder" (2007)

So I go to see this with a few guys, expecting a pretty fun “guy” movie. I didn’t expect too much, really. I had low expectations, but I like Karl Urban and the prospect of him starring in his own movie intrigued me. Well…I should’ve set my expectations even lower. “Pathfinder” is everything a movie should not be. I can’t stress this enough: Stay away from this movie.

The story, such as it is, centers on a young Viking boy who is left in the Americas and found by a native near the wreckage of a Viking ship. (Why the Viking ship was wrecked is never explained…) The young boy is given the name, “Ghost’, and grows up to look like Karl Urban. Eventually the Vikings return and kill everyone in his adopted village. Ghost then seeks to exterminate every last one of them. It sounds like it could be a fun action movie, but when you look at your watch wondering when more story will unfold it’s not a good sign. Frankly, the action isn’t all that fun either and the whole movie ends up being more and more of a bore-fest as time goes on.

The movie actually started out with a great deal of potential; but when the Vikings start using snow sleds in a high speed pursuit you realize you went to see the wrong movie. Karl Urban’s a good actor, but he doesn’t do enough at all to prove it. He’s given very few lines and he’s too busy being told by director Marcus Nispel to rip off scenes from “Rambo II” to do anything else.

His character is the only one you remotely care about and the only one worth caring about. This isn’t saying much though. His own character development is contrived and none of the other characters grow at all. The relationships seem to excel with no real purpose behind them and when the so-called love story subplot comes in you have to ask yourself, “Why is this happening?”

The technical aspects of the film aren’t a highlight either. The scenery is nice, but you get sick of the dark blue tint to the whole film rather easily. And while the Vikings have impressive, huge, over-exaggerated armor mounted to their bodies, the natives are wearing costumes that look like they were bought from a Halloween shop. It’s really pathetic and unrealistic compared to the mighty Vikings.

It’s also interesting to note that the Vikings are, supposedly, speaking in their native language which are accompanied by subtitles. The natives, however, speak perfect English. I understand they’re not “really” speaking English, but I believe the concept was to make the natives appear more civilized and the Vikings more barbaric. Does anyone see a problem with this? Are people who speak a language outside English automatically less civilized? Why couldn’t the whole movie be subtitled with the natives speaking their own language? Subtitled movies are becoming more and more accepted these days, why not? I suppose the "teen" audience would have been turned off by it, but their weren’t many teens in the theater when I went to see the stupid movie anyway.

I can’t really find much good to say about the movie. It’s boring, it seems like it goes on forever, it’s riddled with enough clichés to make the sci-fi original motion pictures look like masterpieces and it has no regard for proper utilization of characters. It’s a shame really. Karl Urban has talent and I’d like to see him star in another movie one of these days, but someone has to hand him a better script…perhaps one with lines in it next time?

½ out of ****