Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

Evidently, commas and hyphens are discounted profoundly in Mexico, and for some reason, Fox thinks that Mexicans are more interested in Native Americans-versus-Vikings than anyone else. Put those two oddball ideas together, and you get this early look at Marcus Nispel’s latest attempt at coherence.

Hi,guys.Down here, south of the border, Pathfinder already opened and I just watched it, so I figured Id give you something of a quick, spoiler-light review before it opens up there-the imdb lists April 20 as the american release date-,since Ive not read much about it in the site.

As you know-Im guessing-Pathfinder is the native-americans-against-vikings movie with the poster resembling a Frank Frazzeta paperback cover. And a native-americans-against-vikings movie is what it is,talk about high-concept. The movie is directed by Marcus Nispel,better known-and loathed- by angst-ridden geeks all over America as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake helmer. I personally didnt find that one all that offensive and he comes off even better with this one, although I must clarify that Id come into the theater thoroughly ready to hate the thing,so my expectations were not all that optimistic (not all that existent I should probably say). He doesnt try to dig any deeper down that very simple central idea, either, and in the end it becomes clear that was the right thing to do.

The first of the three very clearly defined acts is not only hands-down the best but it also managed to hurl me back to John Milius's Conan's own first third, unable as I was to disassociate the snowy,wild yet beautiful imagery from the Robert E.Howard iconography. Here,we are presented with an orphaned viking boy, last survivor of an apparently first invasion try-out, stranded in an unknown continent and taken in by a kind native woman to be raised as one of her own (this is one of those where, if you saw the trailer, you saw the whole picture already, hence my upcoming scarce attention at plot-detailing).

We then fast-forward fifteen years and the boy has become Karl Urban (the hero who kills the Rock in Doom). We meet the love interest-the stunning Moon Bloodgood (Eight Below)-,the dashing warrior who keeps throwing him threatening glances, and the wise father who wont let him become a full member of their circle until he can figure out by himself who he really is, all of this with a very appreciated minimum of dialogue, which is a constant all throughout the movie. Then, the shit hits the fan and it doesnt stop splattering until the end: the vikings arrive, wipe out the viking-american's village, kill his parents, and after some fighting and chasing he's on the loose.

Act 2 is the weakest, although I suscribe it to the murky lighting pervading most of it (it takes place almost entirely in caves and by night) rather than to sloppy plotting, which, as I already said, is almost nonexistent-and I dont mean it in a bad way. However, the movie is not all that long (a swell hour and half) and before I could get really antsy,the climactic last half hour arrived, delivering a nice cliffhanger sequence (literally), with all the lead villains following Urban and the girl up the narrow cliff around a snow-laden mountain, tied-up one to another.

The movie feels like a story made up by turns around a campfire in a boy-scout trip, helplessly episodic but good-natured, firmly rooted in the most classical tradition of adventure storytelling. The screenplay is by Laeta Kalogridis, James Cameron's latest writing darling (she is writing both Battle Angel and Dive for Cameron to direct), and this is, after Nightwatch (the russian supernatural mess), and Alexander (the Oliver Stone epic), easy her best work. There is almost no dialogue and that works because there is no need for it-the movie was its original pitch, for sure, and it cleverly concerns merely with visually displaying it. Also,I dont think I caught any but a couple of character names during the actual film, even though they are fully listed during the end credits, and I thanked that, particularly in a movie like this, which could have been crammed full with beauties like "Fucks-with-no-condom" and "Wears-bearskin-panties".

The action is fast-paced, with some original touches uncommon for a period piece every now and then, like using a viking shield as a bobsled, and the final scene in the mountain, which resembles a set-piece in Cliffhanger, or an addendum to the hanging bridge sequence in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Should you go see this flick? If you like old-fashioned adventure movies,yes,you should. If you are expecting genre-conventions-breaking or, at the very least, some Moon Bloodgood's- ass-pounding, then you better skip it for, unfortnately, there is none of those.

Regardless,I liked it,all right. From south of the border,where you can drink margaritas and court señoritas, I am Henry Darger.