This is the fourth feature length film I've seen by director Terry Jones. I chose to watch this film based on previous good ratings I've given other films by this director and to better my favorite directors by algorithm listing.
Erik the Viking
All of the previous films I've seen with Terry Jones' name attached with directing credit have been the Monty Python films. So it's hard to judge this film without having the Pythons work somewhere else in your mind. Especially since Jones himself and John Cleese both appear in the film as well. Jones states in the special features on the DVD that he feels as though part of the reason the film was mostly a flop was because of people's expectations for another Python film. I'm not sure if that's really a fair reason though. If he thought that was the reason, he should have known as much from the start.
Also, he seemed to want to blame the editing of the film. In fact this film has been reedited a number of times. I'm not sure the exact count. The version currently available on DVD is the shortest version yet, entitled "The Director's Son's Cut" because Jones' son Bill was the editor for the release. I'm not sure why Jones thought that it was necessary to keep cutting and slashing this film down to smaller and smaller sizes. I got a hold of a copy of the previously released version, and I didn't feel like it dragged any more than the latest cut. In fact, the new cut takes out so much and rearranges things so much, that I found it a bit confusing. There's not a lot of logic for why one scene leads to another because all of that has been cut out.
The story is fun though and there are some great characters and actors. It was fun to see Tim McInnerny of Blackadder fame who makes a great pear with both his father played by writer Charles McKeown (who has co-written a few Terry Gilliam scripts) and also with his main rival / best friend Richard Ridings. McInnerny's scenes of going berserk are my favorite in the film.
Although Tim Robbins does well in the role of Erik, I do not think he is right for it. Listen to the commentary and even Terry Jones will admit. They had a lot of other people they wanted to play the role first that fell through. It's not really his acting that is to fault, it's just his stature. Robbins is one of the biggest and tallest guys of the group, but it would have been much more fun and funny if he was more short and scrawny.
The inexplicable romances in the film are another thing that put me off a bit too. But the characters and settings still make it fun enough that I'm glad I was glad to have seen it.
Terry Jones:
Total feature length films seen: 4
Previous average film score: 9.3333
New average film score: 8.75
Rating: 7/10