Dark Kingdom...

This evening I watched the first half of Dark Kingdom. I'd been intrigued by this when I saw an ad for the DVD in recent comic books.

Intrigued for two reasons: the main one being that (thanks to Tolkien and Thor comic books), I have a passionate fascination with the history of the dark ages, including the legendary history like Beowulf), and the secondary one being that I thought the two leads, Benno Furmann and Kristanna Loken, looked gorgeous.

Now, in the past, whenever I have pursued the Volsung Saga, or Wagner's Ring Cycle, or the Niebelungenlied, I have ended up confused and bored. So it was with this movie. Pity. It was fun to see Samuel West as King Gunther - but it's fun to see him in anything, and he makes a beautiful king. The costumes could have been from anywhere between 400 A.D. and 1400 - I couldn't figure out when they were intending us to think this was, but didn't really expect consistency. I did expect a better script.

All in all, it reminded me of the TV series Hercules, which I couldn't be bothered to watch.

I hope someday they'll do a really good movie based on the Siegfried story.