The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Erik the Viking (1989), directed by Terry Jones

This piece was written a couple months ago, so it's only recently that the news about Terry has become known. As a fan of Monty Python, both as a source of comedy and as a creative collective, it's incrdibly depressing to see one of the architects of the troupe - and Jones was, if not as immensely poopular as John Cleese or Eric Idle, just as vital to the magic that was Monty Python than any of the other members - fall victim the ravages of time. He's all responsible for directing all those Python movies you love to quote so much, so maybe after you read this piece, you can watch this movie, and maybe even life itself, with a bit of a different perspective. Which was the mission of Monty Python from the very beginning, I believe.

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Lightning Strikes Again", by Thor

     I’m having trouble starting this one off, so I’ll try this out: Whenever I watch Monty Python, whether the Flying Circus or the four feature-length films, I don’t really enjoy them for the humor. They are very funny of course, but what draws me to the work of Python is the high degree of craftsmanship when it comes to the material. There is something about the way they put their sketches together, so simple, so direct and yet so openly absurd, that I find just fascinating to watch. I mean, what is the ‘Cheese Shop’ sketch but a guy trying and failing to buy some cheese? That’s all it is, and yet the way it’s presented, the way Cleese and Palin take their lines, the slow, confusing build-up to an anti-punchline, it’s like seeing a visual model of how the human body functions in some strange way. Of course, being comedians, I’m sure the men behind Monty Python would rather people laugh at their jokes than study them, so maybe I’m doing it wrong.

     Anyway, over the years I’ve steadily decreased the amount of Python-related media in my watch queue, whether it was directly done by the comedy troupe or just the individual members. Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and Meaning of Life? Done. Fawlty Towers and Do Not Adjust Your Set? Done. The filmography of Terry Gilliam? Brazil and 12 Monkeys are fantastic films, and I’ve done write ups on both Jabberwocky and Time Bandits in this past, Time Bandits even making an appearance in a previous Marathon. Given that Python respect and the Python precedence in previous lists, it shouldn’t be all that surprising that I would do a piece on a film on yet another Python alum, in this case the esteemed Terry Jones. So here’s Erik the Viking, and you better bloody well like it.

     In the gray, bitter land of Norse, centuries before the English set foot on the soil of the New World, the viking known as Erik (played by Tim Robbins, whom you might recall from Jacob’s Ladder) is troubled. The world of the viking is a dull and dreary one it seems, a continuous cycle of raping and pillaging that only serves to fuel more raping and pillaging, and his own attempts at raping and pillaging left him with a deep emptiness in his soul. Seeking counsel from the wise women Freya, Erik is told that the great wolf Fenrir has chased the sun from the sky, the gods lie sleeping in Asgard, and the world of man is currently in the Age of Ragnarok. If Erik wishes to keep men from hating and killing one another he must journey to Asgard and awaken the gods, and to do that he must journey to the land of High Brazil and find the mystic Horn of Resounding. So he decides to get himself a team of stalwart vikings and just do that. Of course, it wouldn’t be an odyssey if there weren’t some dangerous trials to overcome, and there are some people who actually prefer living in the Age of Ragnarok, thank you very much. Well, no one said epic quests were going to be easy.

     If you’re familiar with Monty Python formula, or the Blackadder and Discworld and occasionally Mel Brooks formula too I guess, then you’re probably not going to be too put off with Erik the Viking. Take one setting in the past which may or may not include elements of high fantasy and have people who haven’t invented toilet paper behave like normal modern day folk, and the just watch the satirical anachronisms pile up. A dad nagging his son for not being a proper berserker, the antagonist (a white-collar war chief) who decides to stop Erik’s journey because an age of peace would negatively affect the blacksmithing industry, about what you might expect. Only two Pythons this time around, Terry Jones and John Cleese in relatively minor roles, but you get people like Mickey Rooney, Eartha Kitt and Tim McInnerny (of Blackadder fame), which I think is a pretty good trade-off. Funny is funny not matter who it is.

     Although, much like in Time Bandits, I wouldn’t say Erik the Viking is strictly a comedy, and I wouldn’t say it’s strictly comedic in nature. In this film people die in goofy ways, they die in somber ways, and sometimes they just die and there’s not really any emotion that feels right. The Vikings set out for glory and to see the fabled halls of Asgard, but when they finally get there the great mead halls of Valhalla aren’t exactly all that great, and the gods aren’t exactly how the legends described them. Is the message that shit happens, no matter whether you’re good or bad, and the only thing you can do is try to deal with it? Or that the world is a neutral, uncaring place, and that if mankind wants a better life for itself then it needs to take responsibility for its actions? Could be both, could be it’s just a movie and you should maybe just relax. It’s up to you.

     The thing is, the fact that it feels so familiar also means that there isn’t really that much that sets it apart. If you’ve seen Holy Grail or Jabberwocky or the first series of Blackadder then you already have some idea of how the jokes are going to be framed, how the setting is going to be used, and so on and so forth. Which doesn’t make it bad, I can name a good number of funny scenes here, but there really isn’t anything about Erik the Viking that I would recommend over more well-known, more well-regarded films. I don’t really believe in numerical scores for films, or at the very least I don’t try to base whether or not I recommend a movie solely on a number, but at this moment I can’t think of a movie more well-suited to a 7/10 than Erik the Viking. Not a movie that you’ll see a lot of praise for, but if you do end up going for it you’ll still have a fun time.

     For the sake of reference, The Usual Suspects also got a 7 on my internal judgement scale (maybe I wanted to start off on a high-note). In that case, I phrased my recommendation of the fact that it’s a movie that gets a lot of praise, but might not be as enjoyable as you might be lead to believe. The yang to Erik the Viking’s yin I suppose, but personally I’ve always preferred to be underrated than overrated. Both sides end up causing obnoxious arguments on the internet but at least you could argue the former comes from a place of positivity, at least until the death threats and comparisons to Nazis start. Coming from a guy who’s spent a majority of his life with the internet, I feel like ‘positive before Godwin’s Law showed up’ is about the best you’re going to get.