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| Directed By: |
| Marcus Nispel |
| Starring: |
| Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgoood, Clancy Brown, Russell Means |
The 13th Warrior (1999) meets BloodRayne director Uwe Boll
Overdressed Vikings invade "Native American" villages to cleanse the land of "savages" before settling in what I guess to be precolonial North America. Actually, they do it twice, once to leave behind the kid who'll grow up to kill them all, and the second time to be killed by said kid. Whoever's idea it was to slap Norwegians together with Indians is a genius. That's much better than my idea, which is to tell the same story, but with sock puppets. And instead of Vikings, they're ninjas; and instead of an Indian village, the boy has to grow up on an alien planet populated with giant amoeba. Space ninjas and amoeba, thank you Pathfinder producers for showing me the error of my ways. Anyway, to compare Pathfinder to something like Apocalypto would be like comparing King Arthur (2004, another terrible movie) to The Godfather(1972). Pathfinder is awful on a level that can't be described without fowl language. Uwe Boll fans rejoice.
The end credits roll and we're allowed to leave alive.
Ghost and friends spend a good 20 minutes setting up Predator-style mantraps only to have they're village's entire hunting party accidentally jump into them for no good, plot-practical reason.
Karl Urban's ability to accept roles in terrible movies is beginning to annoy me to the point of writing him off as a one-hit-wonder who once upon a time played Eomer in Lord of the Rings (2002-2003).
Remembering that director Marcus Nispel was responsible for the unfortunate 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake about an and hour and thirty-nine minutes too late to save my money and my mortal soul, I immediately went home after Pathfinder to spend an equal amount of time in the fetal position underneath a scorching hot shower, rocking back and forth and mumbling to myself.
I'm sure that Nispel set out to make another Last of the Mohicans (1992), unfortunately the final product is more evidence that he really needs to go back to directing music videos. Pathfinder is b-movie schlock with b-movie actors destined to sign autographs at b-movie conventions. "Hey look, it's that horse-guy from Lord of the Rings, and there's the evil dude from Highlander."
Indian villages are wiped out including men, women, and children, Vikings too. Death by spear, sword, bludgeoning, falling, beheading, impalement, limb severing, eyeball severing, drowning, etc. There is an impaled bear and corpses lying about. The violence is badly cut with high-contrast close-ups and over caffeinated camera operators. Half the time the action is unclear while the other half sports bad CG blood.
Urban unimpressively shirtless, along with a few other half naked men.
I guess if "Native American" culture hadn't evolved in a thousand years I might have bought Nispel's and screenplay re-writer Laeta Kalogridis' (Alexander, 2004) portrayal of the People of the Dawn. As it stands, my limited knowledge of "Native American" history completely trumps Nispel's overly modernized vision likely based on reservation culture. My guess is that genuine article and American Indian Movement activist Russell Means, who plays Pathfinder, whispered a romanticized novelization of his culture into the ears of the producers. If Pathfinder wasn't so terrible I might have looked passed its Hollywoodization.