This movie is a remake of Rocket Gibraltar. Not a literal, scene by scene remake, but a remake nonetheless. The central concept of both movies is the Viking funeral. In this movie we have the mystic Hawaiian. In Rocket Gibraltar there are the children. In this movie there is alienation from the father, though for reasons that are really unclear. I mean really, in the explanatory speech of Don, the father did not go to see his son play baseball? In Rocket Gibraltar it is the natural distance that grows between parents and children, who grow up to be parents themselves and have to live lives of their own. This is not a bad movie. Rocket Gibraltar is better.

OK, so i'm not a movie reviewer, but someone's gotta set the record straight here. This is a solid movie, bordering on very good.I watched two times and enjoyed it both times. A lot of reviewers and raters apparently came in with a very narrow, shallow and pre- conditioned view of what this movie is supposed to be. No. Valhalla doesn't fit easily into any particular genre bucket. It's not a pure comedy, it's not "Darker Modern Family", it's not drama, etc. It is, however, a great piece of writing with fantastic, tight, highly committed crew of actors. And that's, what i think, makes this such a pleasurable experience. It is pure joy to watch every single actor here. There is tremendous depth and substance to every character. They play sincerely, with no holding back or emotional hedging. They embrace the characters and the story and go all out. I know I said earlier that it wasn't comedy, but I did find it absolutely hilarious at times. Sometimes it was funny but the kind of funny when everything is so wrong that any additional wrong just becomes funny because of being so comedically and narratively predictable.Here is my advice, let go of any preconceived notions of story and especially actors and just enjoy it. This movie is a labour of love with a lot of effort put in by everyone - give it a chance.

To be honest, I liked clichéd movies, I like the stories where even if you know how the story is going to play out you still care for the characters and their interaction. Unfortunately See You In Vallhalla did not have that. Let's start off with the characters, the movie revolves around Johanna and her dysfunctional family, who each has a problem that they don't necessarily want to show to the public. Her brothers and herself were good characters, definitely clichéd but they went through lot of emotional spectrum. However the movie does a poor job in making us care for the characters, they have large conflicts and arguments which does nothing but give us expositions and making us hate the characters. In the arguments we are thrown into a dizzy and chaotic sequences where there is nothing for the audience to look beyond the words spoken by the members of the family. Right off the bat we are expected to root for Johanna, and the script does that by making everybody else a bigger douche than she is. With that the script creates not the most relatable character we can expect to find in a drama such as this. While the main characters were hard to care for, they were in the process of becoming human and real, however the supporting casts of acquaintances are all just a one dimensional caricatures. When I read the review for the movie there were some praises for Makewi, and his comedic timing, but his character is just a stereotypical combination of a crazy foreigner and gay, and outside of that there's nothing behind it. If he is truly the most interesting character in the movie then the movie truly speaks out for itself. Other supporting characters too were all flat, one dimensional characters and only played one emotion throughout the movie. The biggest crime this film has, however is beat. Every time someone talked it showed them talking with a close up, another person talking would bring us to another close up. If played well it might've fit in well with the frantic family argument scenes, but because of constant cutting the every dagger of words that each family member throws is hidden as the reaction shot is missing. We only see the hurtful words, we do not see the impact it creates. More frustrating fact is that even when there isn't much argument every dialogue is interlaced with several cuts, if the director just simply placed the camera and let the actors just talk in front of it without any cutting then we could see the realism, instead of the director telling us "LOOK! SOMETHING IMPORTANT" we could track it with our eyes and make the decision for ourselves. With it's technique I couldn't believe the acting, I am sure that they made some fine acting choices but as an audience member we can't see it. The emotional aspects also gets lost because of the constant cutting but as well as its choice of music placement. If they strive for realism they should've had some quiet scenes, where the characters reflect upon their actions. When the character have a moment of sorrow there is always a music playing in the background. If you like movies like this, where they call for tear jerking moments or sappy story lines I understand but the film lacks the technical perspective to show the emotional realism. If you like stories like this, I implore you to find more where the technical aspect fits with the story line, where the director let the actors play and make the audience truly care for what's going on the scene. If you liked this movie and you want more try Silver Linings Playbook where the dysfunctional family with crazy supporting casts all get cast in a humane light, or The Spectacular Now where the director do very minimal to make the characters be more real.If you hated this movie and saw it because I guess you went to a theatre to see it and you wanted to leave in the middle of the movie but you were like I payed so I should see it. You were kind of stupid, but you should try those two movies or just watch some action films.Rating: If you are bored, watch it. It's better than nothing.

I started watching this and eleven minutes in, couldn't take much more of it. Then I decided I should give it another chance, since I really hadn't. It started to get a little better, then just got weird. The ending was so bizarre, no spoiler here...I just felt awkward for the actors having to pull off the scene. It was almost as they knew "this is crap", but did their best. Sarah Hyland was pretty good in it, the acting was fine but the writing was all over the place. It was almost like they were making it up as they went along. It was hard to relate to, and I have a pretty strange family myself. Not to be unkind, but spend your time doing something else.