Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Okay...truthfully, I knew this movie would not be a cinematic masterpiece. I knew it would be some low-budget, straight-to-video Lord of the Rings knock off. It was low-budget and it was straight-to-video. However, it wasn't a LOTR knockoff...which is unfortunate. The story was Beauty and the Beast all over again...only it was set it the days of the Vikings. This is a problem because the characters didn't act like Vikings, nor did they dress like Vikings. For God's sake they wear all wearing chain mail...CHAIN MAIL!!! Vikings were only a couple of centuries BEFORE chain mail. If this story had taken place on an imaginary world with imaginary tribes and people and such, it would have been much better. However, setting it in Viking era did nothing but fill the movie with historical inaccuracies.Inaccuracies aside, let's talk hair. Most of the actor were wearing wigs and it was obvious. There was one in particular...I remember him vividly. He was only in the movie for a couple of seconds. You say him in the background on the boat. He had no lines and no name that was mentioned. He was obviously just an extra. His job was to just blend in. Unfortunately, he didn't. Why?? Because he was wearing this ridiculous 1980's Britney Fox wig. This thing was WAY too big for the actor's head. It was just so terrible. All of the actors had bad wigs, but this one was the worst. Also, William Gregory Lee had hair extensions, but, apparently, the budget wasn't big enough for him to get a full head of them, so the producers just gave him a few. You could see where they were attached to his head and...it was awful. Also, what the heck was up with that little twig over his forehead. That thing got on my nerves.The acting was, by no means, great. It was like watching a high school play or an after school special (for those of you old enough to actually remember after school specials). Anything with Justin Whalin is destined to be crap...let me present Exhibit A: Dungeons & Dragons, Child's Play 3, Lois and Clark...you get the idea. However, he wasn't the worst actor...in fact, he did well. William Gregory Lee got on my nerves. Obviously, he wasn't really all that tough, because he seemed to be having trouble acting tough. Jane March was okay, but not great. David Dukas, who played the Beast/Agnar, was probably the best, but only whilst playing the Beast. He struggled through the three minutes that he played Agnar. Very strange. The other actors were nothing short of mildly mediocre.The SFX in this movie were...well...almost completely absent. The Beast was a guy in a prosthetic suit. And though it was a pretty cool idea, it really just looked like a guy in a bear skin rug. Also, the fires never looked real. Apparently, it was cheaper to make fake fire rather than actually set stuff on fire for real. The flames looked like those TV fireplace things and the smoke...well...there are no words to describe how bad the smoke looked. In the film's defense, though, this was a low-budget movie. That is something that must be taken into consideration. The weapons were obviously fake. They looked like wooden weapons that were spray-painted to look like metal only the producers hired some one-eyed imbreed from a Mississippi body shop to paint them.In the end. This film was low-budget and watching it gave constant reminders of this fact. However, the low budget wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that the producers tried to pass it off as a Viking tale. They should have just gone ahead and made it a cheap knock-off of LOTR. It would have actually been a better film. 3/10.

I agree with the previous comment: this movie is better than you think, it's pretty nice and obviously the core crew put as much effort into it as they could given budget.The things that I don't like differ from the previous opinion, though.I think the costumes and sets are actually pretty good, in my opinion the main problem is some lousy acting. Not by Jane March but by the bad guy and some others. Quite obviously, somebody had an idea for a movie and got a good team together and then had to hire actors that lack a certain spirit.But in the end it is enjoyable enough and hey, Brad Pitt can't act either so there.

When you see the cover you already know that the movie isn't going to be one of your favorites, but it looks like worth watching. It's made directly for TV, so what do you expect after all?All in all the movie is good, enjoyable and nice. But far from great. The acting is like watching some fantasy adventure TV series. Jane March is enjoyable. The directing and the camera-work are about average. The sets are nice. The costumes are all right. The story is good.Five things that would made the movie better: -Why vikings? They'd better have used some imaginary tribe or something. In that case no one would complain about things like "vikings do thins", "vikings don't do that" and stuff. Indeed, the vikings from this movie are quite far from the vikings in the history books and documentaries. -Better fires. The burning island of the beast don't look well -Better make-up and costumes. The vikings should be a little bit dirty, shouldn't they? These here look a little bit tidy. And Freya's wedding dress... well -Watch out what you shoot! We all know it's not a big budget production, but be more careful! In several of the close ups you in the cages of the beast you can actually see where the metal was soldered. This makes bad impression and spoils the things.This is a simple modest fantasy tale movie. It's satisfactory,but could be much better with more efforts and imagination.

We rented this movie for fun, and what a blast it was! The cover looks like Lord of the Rings, which is why it was rented. The acting was alright, some were worse than others. But that's to be expected in a movie like this. The sets were good, for the budget they were on. Costumes were not completely historically accurate, but they were alright. Sven's fringe braid thing was fugly, and I wanted to cut it off. The wigs though...the best damn thing in this movie. Who designed them I don't know, but damn, they were hideous. Fugly, fugly, fugly! Overall it's an okay movie, um maybe play a drinking game while you're watching so that it seems better than it really is? Though if you have a rule where you take a drink every time a bad wig is on the screen, you may die.