A different way of telling a story

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Already the heroic-like Vikingy folksy music is not encouraging. Sounds like a cheesy power-metal album intro. It's the kind of music that announces a children's action movie, which this dull flick is to some extent.Predictable from start to finish, a strictly formulaic movie. The characters would all fail their IQ tests, coz none of them ever realize that the Kermit the Viking lizard is the reason Mother Monster is chasing the bunch in the first place. It gets dumber: the subject of Kermit-in-a-box is never brought up, but somehow the expedition leader turns out to know about it much later. Wouldn't the director have found it prudent to include a scene in which Sigbjorg is informed by the others that they're tagging along a baby monster? Wouldn't that be just a tad too important not to mention? A real little dinosaur dragon? But no, just as Sigfjord's stupid son didn't deem it necessary to report to his father that he found a huge round object which was obviously an egg. Nor was the young child supervised enough to not be on his own long enough to find something crucial and hide it away in his bag like the moron that he is. Clearly Sigbjork doesn't give a toss about his offspring, and frankly I can't blame him either. If anything, kids usually brag about the smallest thing they find, yet this kid kept his discovery a secret – just so the movie could have its stupid, predictable, cliché plot-device. As if we didn't know it's an egg. As if we couldn't figure out that it would hatch and wreck havoc.The blond chick is very absurdly some kind of a vagabond action-woman, a sort of vapid, homeless version of Lara Croft and Batwoman. There are two young men in this adventure, and yet it's the blond hobo girly who saves the day on several occasions. Oh the feminists, they never rest on their non-laurels. Yes, we understand, Mr. and Mrs. Left-wing Filmmaker, women are just as physically competent as men – and that's probably why men and women compete separately in ALL sports, even in chess which isn't even a real sport. And why women play best-of-three sets in grand slam events – but ask for equal pay. So they must be mental equals to men also, right? If I could have a penny for every brilliant female scientist, I could buy a house – for an ant.The stupidity of the expedition's members isn't insignificant. They fail to realize that the fat guide is a sleazy, suspicious character who very predictably screws them over and then even more predictably fails to escape but gets eaten by Kermit's maker. Then it takes them a whole half-hour of running away from the Findragon to realize that Kermit is the reason they are being pursued and that to appease the dragon all they need is to hand over the worm to it.

I had been wanting to watch this movie for a couple of months, but I could not find a version that had been dubbed in English - until now. This is a Norwegian film, so you'll need to find it with sub-titles or a version already dubbed in English. The quality of the audio dubbing was not all that great, but it worked. It was a lot better than having to read sub-titles or watch it in Norwegian.A down-on-his-luck archaeologist is having problems with his job/research into Viking mythology. He's a widower and a single father of 2 children. After losing funding for his work due to lack of progress, his friend shows up from the northern coast of Norway with an ancient rune-stone, which launches them all into their next adventure.Nothing here is too exceptional, scary, or gory. It's a decent movie for the whole family - and I'm not generally "into" family movies. So, I was surprised that I liked it so well. Honestly, I was expecting a little bit more from the "monster," but it wasn't completely cheesy either.Overall, the plot was pretty predictable. I think I enjoyed it so much because there were believable characters and good acting - especially from the child actors. I find many child actors tend to make or break a movie like this, and these kids can hold their own. The main character was also a good actor. None of the acting was completely bad, which is why I think the whole thing worked. For being a lower-budget production, this movie holds up very well. It's a bit of a slow start, but once it gets going it steadily builds tension and held my interest right up to the ending.

No problem to watch this one with kids. I does contain a big monster that hunts and kills people but you won't see anything of that on screen. The killing rate is very low too. It is good for what it is, an adventure movie with an old Norwegian mythology as starting point. I for one had hoped it would contain some more fantasy elements but that wasn't the case. There is some excitement at times but nothing really frightening. The events and the characters' actions are pretty cliché and predictable with also an easy solution and happy end. So yes the story was maybe a bit too simple and the characters one dimensional for my tastes, but at least it has some really beautiful nature shots.

I absolutely love Scandinavian cinema, and really this was a fun and entertaining film. Like everybody else said it is a family film, but I don't feel that it is something just directed at kids, either. That being said the most glaring issue I had was no real substantial resolution at the end. They build this entire mythos, based on Norse mythology, and surrounding this monster. However, once we get to the final battle the monster stares the protagonist down and then slithers away.Norse mythology is a fantastic jumping off point and is relatively neglected compared to Greek mythology. I really just wish the ending was more satisfying than it turned out to be. Still a decent movie to watch, and appears to take a more Hollywood approach in terms of style.