98 - Erik the Viking

    Erik the viking persuades his fellow vikings to go on a quest to end the age of Ragnarok in hopes of bringing a woman he loved back to life.
    This is considered a Monty Python movie, although it doesn’t feel quite like one.  There are some inspired bits, but there’s a lot of material that mostly seems confusing.  This is probably caused by the remarkably poor audio.  Some of the dialogue is perfectly clear, but there’s a massive dynamic range, and there’s a lot of whispered material that I can’t quite pick out.
    The pacing varies.  Some sequences are nice and tight, and the laughs play out right.  Some sequences are strangely overlong.
    The weirdest part of the movie is that it came out in 1989.  It feels less polished than Holy Grail or Meaning of Life, and yet it was released years later.  It feels like a dry run for Time Bandits or Adventures of Baron Munchausen - but those movies were before it.
    Very peculiar.  But there are some very fun bits, mostly on the island.  The ending seems like a step down from the excitement that had been cultivated beforehand.