So first off, you might be wondering why you never heard of this movie
well this is because it was actually a Danish movie. That's right, this (from what I can find out anyway) was only released in Denmark even though it has English and Danish voice actors. Because of this, there are some things that I don't really understand as far as jokes go.
So the story is pretty much the fish out of water story told a dozen times before. In fact, most of the characters feel loosely based on characters seen in 'How to Train your Dragon'. We have the slightly wimpy Barbarian (substitute Barbarian with Viking and you get Hiccup), the rather tough Warrior Shield Woman (Counterpart would be Astrid), the rather jerky and womanizing Bard (Counterpart would be Snotlout and if you say he isn't a womanizer, have you seen how he acts to Astrid?), the flamboyant Elf (I feel like he was a mix of both Tuffnut and Fishlegs), and the father figure who wants the wimp to be a perfect Barbarian (Pretty much Stoick). Now I don't normally like to compare two movies or shows much, but it was hard for me not to find this as more of an adult form of one of my favorite movies... and in my opinion, it is pretty lacking.
So basically the main story goes along the lines of all the barbarians are kidnapped and Ronal is supposed to be the one to save them. Ya, sound like something else? The evil Volcazar wants to capture all the decedents of the warrior Krong, the one who defeated the god of Volcazar's tribe. Volcazar's tribe is basically the tribe of Masicistic Satanic lust from what I actually gathered. To be fair, I think all the different groups of people in this fantasy world just get on my nerves. All the different tribes and races felt much more like stereotypes. The Barbarians were like Jocks, Amazons like sex crazy cheerleaders, and elves well you can tell what they probably were like (For those who can't tell, they were very flamboyant).
This movie is not a children's movie by any stretch of the imagination. There are references and imagery that would probably be found in the adult cartoons we have here in America like close-ups of the ass and the um supposedly endowed lead male. I don't know fully if this is because it is a Danish movie or if it was made specifically for Adults as they have different customs but it does get very overwhelming very quickly with just how many references they put into it in just a few moments. Hell, the enemies henchmen are pretty much dressed and act a lot like masochists with the amount of pain they put on themselves and the leather they wear. (Talking more stereotypical here. Not everyone who is masochistic dresses like these guys.)
This movie was done with CG graphics and though the designs are very interesting and the texture work is pretty nice, the animation isn't all that great. There are times the characters move so fast that I wonder if they forgot to soften the key positions while animating it. The model's motions seem to pop into place at times making the scenes feel jarring and unnatural. I give them some points for trying but the movement really was the part that made me shy away.
I watched the English voice acting, and it was seriously fast. Not sure if it was something with the translations not fitting the amount of time they had, but I found it very hard to follow. When it did finally calm down, I was so confused of what the heck had just happened. It only slowed down about 40 minutes into the movie but it felt like I was only watching it for 10 minutes. You could call that good movie in that it doesn't drag, but when all you pretty much got was a lot of sexual jokes and high pitch whining from the main character, I don't know if that's a good movie or not. So you have noticed that I haven't talked much on the voice actors, well there really isn't much to say on them. Pierce Cravens is the voice of Ronal and he plays off the wimpy whine of that voice rather well though I kind of wish this wasn't our main character. There are plenty of 'wimpy' sounding main characters that I liked before, Hiccup from 'How to Train your Dragon' being one of them. This one however gets on my nerves. And do not get me started on the country hick voice Ben Bledsoe gave for Alibert, the bard. I think the only two I actually liked was Ashley Carin as the shield warrior Zandra and the Oliver Vaquer as the very fruity elf Elric.
The music is forgettable for the most part. I think the only one that was actually memorable was the ending song which was pretty much a rock Ballard about Ronal which I think was called 'Barbarian Rhapsody'. I'm not much into rock but it wasn't bad.
So I guess we came to the important question of what I thought about this movie. Well I can't lie, I didn't like it. I had a couple nice chuckles from the stereotypes, the spoofs, and some of the odd jokes but overall it was kind of painful to watch. The animation and the voices seemed lacking and the overall story went way to fast to not fast enough. It was OK, but I didn't get much enjoyment.
So the story is pretty much the fish out of water story told a dozen times before. In fact, most of the characters feel loosely based on characters seen in 'How to Train your Dragon'. We have the slightly wimpy Barbarian (substitute Barbarian with Viking and you get Hiccup), the rather tough Warrior Shield Woman (Counterpart would be Astrid), the rather jerky and womanizing Bard (Counterpart would be Snotlout and if you say he isn't a womanizer, have you seen how he acts to Astrid?), the flamboyant Elf (I feel like he was a mix of both Tuffnut and Fishlegs), and the father figure who wants the wimp to be a perfect Barbarian (Pretty much Stoick). Now I don't normally like to compare two movies or shows much, but it was hard for me not to find this as more of an adult form of one of my favorite movies... and in my opinion, it is pretty lacking.
So basically the main story goes along the lines of all the barbarians are kidnapped and Ronal is supposed to be the one to save them. Ya, sound like something else? The evil Volcazar wants to capture all the decedents of the warrior Krong, the one who defeated the god of Volcazar's tribe. Volcazar's tribe is basically the tribe of Masicistic Satanic lust from what I actually gathered. To be fair, I think all the different groups of people in this fantasy world just get on my nerves. All the different tribes and races felt much more like stereotypes. The Barbarians were like Jocks, Amazons like sex crazy cheerleaders, and elves well you can tell what they probably were like (For those who can't tell, they were very flamboyant).
This movie is not a children's movie by any stretch of the imagination. There are references and imagery that would probably be found in the adult cartoons we have here in America like close-ups of the ass and the um supposedly endowed lead male. I don't know fully if this is because it is a Danish movie or if it was made specifically for Adults as they have different customs but it does get very overwhelming very quickly with just how many references they put into it in just a few moments. Hell, the enemies henchmen are pretty much dressed and act a lot like masochists with the amount of pain they put on themselves and the leather they wear. (Talking more stereotypical here. Not everyone who is masochistic dresses like these guys.)
This movie was done with CG graphics and though the designs are very interesting and the texture work is pretty nice, the animation isn't all that great. There are times the characters move so fast that I wonder if they forgot to soften the key positions while animating it. The model's motions seem to pop into place at times making the scenes feel jarring and unnatural. I give them some points for trying but the movement really was the part that made me shy away.
I watched the English voice acting, and it was seriously fast. Not sure if it was something with the translations not fitting the amount of time they had, but I found it very hard to follow. When it did finally calm down, I was so confused of what the heck had just happened. It only slowed down about 40 minutes into the movie but it felt like I was only watching it for 10 minutes. You could call that good movie in that it doesn't drag, but when all you pretty much got was a lot of sexual jokes and high pitch whining from the main character, I don't know if that's a good movie or not. So you have noticed that I haven't talked much on the voice actors, well there really isn't much to say on them. Pierce Cravens is the voice of Ronal and he plays off the wimpy whine of that voice rather well though I kind of wish this wasn't our main character. There are plenty of 'wimpy' sounding main characters that I liked before, Hiccup from 'How to Train your Dragon' being one of them. This one however gets on my nerves. And do not get me started on the country hick voice Ben Bledsoe gave for Alibert, the bard. I think the only two I actually liked was Ashley Carin as the shield warrior Zandra and the Oliver Vaquer as the very fruity elf Elric.
The music is forgettable for the most part. I think the only one that was actually memorable was the ending song which was pretty much a rock Ballard about Ronal which I think was called 'Barbarian Rhapsody'. I'm not much into rock but it wasn't bad.
So I guess we came to the important question of what I thought about this movie. Well I can't lie, I didn't like it. I had a couple nice chuckles from the stereotypes, the spoofs, and some of the odd jokes but overall it was kind of painful to watch. The animation and the voices seemed lacking and the overall story went way to fast to not fast enough. It was OK, but I didn't get much enjoyment.