Erik the Viking (1989)

(On Cable TV, December 2018) This review will sound familiar because I have the same overwhelming impression to a very specific category of movies: Most of the live-action fantasy films of the 1980s feel deathly dull to me, and writer/director Terry Jones’ Erik the Viking is no exception. Despite the visual imagination and go-for-broke fantasy concepts in the film, I can’t be bothered to care about any of it. I spend my time nitpicking the special effects, and wondering if any adult who has never seen those movies as a kid can actually care about them now. They seem stuck in an impossible place, with imagination exceeding what the special effects could deliver, and constantly breaking my suspension of disbelief along the way. Time Bandits, Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Erik the Viking: joined at the hip as disappointing experiences. Maybe it’s mood, maybe it’s my imagination shutting down forever, maybe it’s depression (well, I don’t think so as I can still find joy in other areas of my life) but I have little to say about those movies, and even less about Erik the Viking specifically. I’m sorry if this was your favourite film growing up.