I'll Ramble About Pathfinder Like I Did While I Watched It

Two of my coworkers were watching Pathfinder last night, and I wound up watching it as well. I missed the first 20 minutes or so, but Karl Urban plays this Viking, who as a child, was left behind on a Viking expedition to the coast of Nova Scotia (I think). He's been raised by one of the local Native American groups, but now some more Vikings have shown up and are commencing with the killing and burning of all in their path. Naturally, only he can stop them, with a little assistance. But he does most of the work.

Mostly, we made snide comments and criticized the characters' decisions. As Urban leads the Vikings across a somewhat frozen lake, I made a 'Tonight on Ice Road Vikings' crack. When Urban and some others are attacked by a bear, several of the men fail in their attempt to stop the bear. So I chided them, pointing out Anthony Hopkins killed a damn bear with a sharp piece of wood, and he was 60 then. Eventually, a wise old man succeeded in killing the bear, basically how Hopkins did it, I think. I also spent time wincing at the violence. I'm not sure if a person can swing a sword hard enough to cut through a Viking helmet and the top of someone's skull, but it happened. Lots of blood flying about, but if there are Vikings running wild in a movie, I ought to expect blood.

At one point, Urban is waiting to ambush the approaching Vikings. Moon Bloodgood shows up, there's an attraction, cue sex scene. None of us thought this was a wise decision. I was sure it marked Bloodgood for an agonizing death near the end of the film. One of my coworkers argued that she needed to spurn Urban, so he'd be frustrated when the Vikings show up, and he could add that to his anger with said Vikes, leading to total Viking annihilation. I agreed, citing Crank as an example of the guy not getting any (or not getting to finish) leading to rapid antagonist death. My other coworker argued the sex would make Urban calmer, which might be useful. Well, she was right. When he calmed down later on, he had a lot more success eliminating Vikings. Much lower casualty rate on his side from that point on. Of course, most of the people who had tried to help him were dead by then, but the ones that weren't stayed alive at a much higher rate!

It took me awhile to be sure, but eventually I figured out that yes, the leader of the Vikings was the guy who played Hadley, the head guard in Shawshank Redemption, and the Kurgan in Highlander. I never thought to look up his name, which is Clancy Brown, so I was floored when my coworker looks him up and hey, he was the voice of Lex Luthor on the Superman cartoon. I knew a Clancy Brown was the voice actor for Lex, I just didn't know he was this guy. It's one of those things I don't realize until someone points it out, then I wonder how I missed it.