Erik the Viking (Tim Robbins) has been looting and pillaging. He's not so sure about the raping and that leaves him questioning his way of life. Freya sets him to search for the Horn Resounding. He recruits his restless warriors on a quest for the Rainbow Bridge to Valhalla. They battle a sea monster and the pursuing Halfdan the Black (John Cleese) to find the magical island of Hy-Brasil. There is Princess Aud (Imogen Stubbs) with her father King Arnulf (Terry Jones).Terry Jones has injected plenty of Monty Python but the gang is not all there. It makes one pining for the gang to reunite. Robbins is fine but one keeps imagining others in the role. The opening rapey scene is a good introduction. There are some fun moments. All of them have echoes of previous works and it can never exceed them.

This movie has one third of the Monty Python troupe and about only a micron of the laughs.Eric the Viking after killing a woman in a raid, decides he's going to go to Valhala and awaken the gods to end the age of Ragnorak. Accompanying him is a group of misfits including a wanna-be berserker, a Christian Missionary who is incapable of converting anyone and a blacksmith who wants to keep Ragnorak going because it's good for the blacksmith trade.John Cleese plays a bad guy who is pretty much just playing JOhn Cleese.The thing is, unlike Monty Python, these guys just can't make it funny.The movie had okay special effects for a 1980's film, but special effects and comedy really don't mix.

I expected this movie to be a typical Python-esquire comedy, with silly jokes constantly popping up. I don't really like such comedies (I prefer more intelligent humor), but I saw a scene from the movie and thought it was really funny so I watched the movie. What I found out surprised me. The jokes are really funny, but they make up only a small part of the movie (perhapse a quarter of the time). The rest is not that funny (if you're expecting to laugh all the time), but is a relatively decent mythological adventure movie, which strongly reminded me of the movies about the adventures of Odysseus and Jason. You have sea voyages to unknown places, mythical beasts, gods, heroes, magical artifacts... I really like that kind of stuff and I have seen quite a few movies based on Greek and Celtic myths but few based on Nordic (Germanic) myths until now. I don't know if it's really based on an existing myth but it's still in the setting of Nordic mythology. And while it's not really high quality, it's still relatively convincing.

It's good but it's not perfect. I love watching this and I can re-watch it, always the sign of a good film.Tim Robbins is bearable as the annoyingly innocent and world weary Eric. I always feel Mickey Rooney wasn't 1st choice as Eric's Grandfather/father.The largely British cast are excellent and everyone plays their roles well. Tim Mckinnery who would go onto be Captain Darling in Blackadder Goes Forth, Freddie Jones who couldn't have long left the set of Krull so must have felt very typecast to be in this but is really funny not seeing the gods or Valhalla and seeing Eric vanish using The Cloak Invisible.There are so many faces to recognise and everyone does a very good job, John Cleese as Halfdan The Black (I really don't think Jack Lemmon would have done the role justice) as a favour to Terry Jones (who wrote, directed and played The King Of Hybrasil).This was never really going to be a Monty Python Film but it works very well. Not many of the cast were huge stars at the time (apart from Mickey Rooney & Eartha Kitt, most likely the two biggest names attached to the movie) so I think that brought the budget down.It's well shot and all the location stuff looks stunning.For those who like Python or Terry Gilliam style films this is well worth a look and I highly recommend it.It's as funny today as it was when it was made.