Reviews

The first season was better. Anthony La Paglia wasn't very expressive but he was charismatic enough to create a complex character. Kim Coates was better suited to play the underdog, unlike in season two where he's hardly a credible boss. Plus, season two comes with some lazy writing, especially in regard with the two villain twins. Or the Reggie character that came out of nowhere, deus-ex-machina style, just to help with Declan's plot, evolution and vulnerabilities.

Still, I like the show, it's got its intriguing parts, some good actors, not bad overall.

The first half of the movie is pretty boring and reminds quite a lot of a cheap 90s B-movie. Then there's the twist, and things get a lot more interesting. I felt like... my patience was at least partially rewarded.

Pena's acting is decent, but not impressive. I liked more the new guy, Israel Broussard, and Lizzie Caplan.

I still feel like the script had a lot more potential, but this movie is anyway better than its initial ratings show, especially since it comes after a pretty long series of recent Netflix disappointments.

The episode felt longer than it should. It has a bad pace, at times nothing interesting or even remotely relevant seemed to be happening.

Anyway, worst of all was the bear fight scene. It was so cringeworthy and badly-executed that I was hoping to end sooner. I get it, this is no Revenant and Bjorn is no Leo, but still, that bear didn't look perilous at any moment of the whole scene. It moved slower than my grandpa and it took worse decisions than a toddler.

The good parts of the episode were the Athelstan apparition, which gave me goosebumps and was neatly done, and the Berserker part, which unfortunately only lasted a couple of seconds.

Oh, and the episode should've been called "Bjorn screaming", it would've made so much more sense.

Action-wise, the shaky cam during the fights is awful, it's annoying the hell out of me. At least from time to time they pause to focus, in slow motion, on the faces of Ragnar or Rollo. But still, they use the infamous cinematic means of shaky cams or sporadic slow mos during the battles, and this already greatly downsizes the season in my eyes. It's starting to bother me that the producers just don't care enough for the battle scenes.

Tactical-wise, I cringed badly too, as many other people as it seems, at both the "splitting the forces" idea of the first episode, and even more now, at the incredibly stupid Mercians standing in that valley and making themselves easy targets, just like that, without proper explanations or something.

If all this was to show how inexperienced Burgred was as a commander, then OK, I get it. It's still quite incredible how such inapt people got to be leaders, but I get the point nevertheless.

I just reached a point where I desire there will be little, or no battles at all throughout the season, so that I can still enjoy and love the show as I do so far, yet we all know, the Paris siege is coming...