Pathfinder (2007)

Overall rating from 1 to 100: 37

O Masterpiece (95-100)
O Excellent (75-94)
O Good video rental (60-74)
O Merely OK (50-59)
X Pure mediocrity (30-49)
O Medusa: don’t watch (1-29)

Review by Jason Pyles / April 28, 2007

It doesn’t happen very often, but once in a great while, I actually get bored during a movie and hope it will end soon and leave me alone. Such was the case with “Pathfinder,” a supposed action movie.

(Note: Anytime a movie’s release date keeps getting pushed back (as this one’s did), it’s never a good sign. Another red flag — for future reference — is when a movie is shorter than 90 minutes.)

But “Pathfinder” is 99 minutes, so it’s not all taboo. In fact, the acting is fine. The sets are satisfactory — as are the costumes. My “Pure mediocrity” rating is the result of two crucial elements: the storyline and the photography. The plot is a tired, old revenge formula: young warrior’s people are slaughtered by brutes, so young warrior is determined to slaughter said brutes. The end.

More accurately, what we have here is a blend of “Apocalypto” (2006) and “300” (2006), but “Pathfinder” is a much, much lesser movie than either of those.

The photography is maddening. First of all, “Pathfinder” follows the unfortunate “artistic” trend of photographing movies in an overexposed, high contrast. The epitome of this evil practice is “Pitch Black” (2000). The only reason I continued to watch that movie was because the filmmakers were attempting to create a glaringly bright planet that had multiple suns. I could appreciate that, but it was taxing, nevertheless.

Because of this overexposure technique, the colors in “Pathfinder” seem to be washed out to the point that the film often looks like it’s shot in black and white. Black and white is wonderful when it’s intentional: “Good Night, and Good Luck” (2005) is a modern example.

The other problem with the photography is the disorienting method that is used to cheat on the action scenes. Close flashes of bits and pieces of action are depicted in rapid succession to give us the sense that a lot is happening. But we, the bewildered audience, are left without any frame of reference for perspective. In other words, I couldn’t really tell what was going on. For my examples, I cite a sledding chase scene and pretty much every single battle in the movie.

But enough technical criticism ... on to what you really want to know: “Pathfinder” takes place about 600 years before Columbus came to the New World. Native people who already inhabited the land were occasionally raided by Viking marauders. The encroaching plunderers’ objective was to bring about the extinction of the “savages” that they might inherit the new land for themselves.

During one attack gone awry, a solitary Viking child survives. The native people take him in, raise him and name him “Ghost.” Years later, when full-grown Ghost (Karl Urban) is on a hunting trip, the “dragon men” revisit his people with murderous brutality. And here I have come full circle with “Pathfinder”: I’m bored just writing about it.

Directed by Marcus Nispel
Karl Urban / Moon Bloodgood / Russell Means
99 min. Action
MPAA: R (for strong brutal violence throughout)

Copyright 2007.
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