Why So Blu?

Ragnarok (Blu-ray Review)

Take that, Marvel!  The Norwegians have beat you to Ragnarok by a whole four years and before you even had a chance to mutter up the words.  Enjoy your little copycat adventure Thor, Loki and Jane Foster!  Okay, okay, so this film is likely to not resemble that upcoming third Thor film in the slightest, but I thought I’d take that open opportunity and run with it.  Although, funny enough, in the opening moments of the film, the name “Odin” is indeed referenced.   No, this film comes from the director of Cold Prey 3 (A Norwegian slasher series that is pretty darn good, even if that was the weakest entry in it so far), so I was pretty interested from the get go on this one.   In fact, this is Mikkel Brænne Sandemose’s follow up to that film, which was his feature film directorial debut.

Film 

Sigurd Svendson is a museum curator deep in research on the ancient Vikings travels.  When giving a presentation to financial backers., he steps away from his uninteresting and unenlightening factual finds to deter more to his theories.  This doesn’t go well, and its unsure that he’ll be returning for employment.  His hopes turn around when his friend brings him an artifact that may lead to actually proving his theories.  Taking his kids in tow and a pair of other adventurers, they head out to seek meaning in some ancient runes found on the piece of a Viking ship.

Ragnarok is very much in the spirit of being a modern adventure seeking, treasure hunting film.  There are great locales, artifacts and a mystery with the possibility of supernatural elements playing in the Viking’s history.  There’s a lot of cavern searching with flashlights, rope, betrayal from untrustworthy people along for the journey and the sort harking back to that of an Indiana Jones adventure.  It has many of those thematics dating back from those films.

But, Ragnarok is also a monster movie that feels very much in the spirit of Jurassic Park.  In fact, this movie feels like one of the biggest fans of its sequel, The Lost World.  There are a couple of action sequences that are pulled right from it.  That iconic sequence where Goldblum and Julianne Moore are trying to get out of the super bus station thing before it falls off the cliff is completely redone here.  The good thing is, the film seems to know it too and feels more of a fun tribute than a rip off.  Even though they look nothing alike, the monster in this film will remind you of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park with its movements and the way that the shoot it.  But, like Jaws, they keep the monster in the shadows for a lot of the film and slowly build to reveals.  Its really cool how they do it, and the pay off is great.

To keep the Spielberg lovefest going, this movie’s characterizations are all fitting of that in the 80s/90s Spielberg adventure mold.  We get a widower raising his two young kids, going on this adventure.  It handles all these relationships and depth with plenty of skill.  Its the right setup and the right way to work these characters and have their lives and conflicts be just as interesting as anything going on with the archaeology trip and monster chasing.  It knows how to pull this sort of thing off, as opposed to something that tried super hard to be Spielberg, like Super 8.

This movie is actually a whole lot of fun.  Its wonderfully set up, keeps a great pace, and never loses you in any techno babble or historical fact telling.  There are curtains continually being pulled back and revealing more and ramping up the intensity.  There are some terrific suspense sequences and monster attacks in this movie, too.  I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who has enjoyed the films I’ve reference in this review or is a fan of that era of Spielberg.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Clarity/Detail:  This is a pretty looking picture.  A lot of the locations are gorgeous photographed and reflected perfectly in this transfer.  A lot of detail in the dirt and rock is crisp, sharp and terrific.  Clothing texture is highly visible.  The most impressive detail of the image is that the monster has perfectly been translated into this transfer, looking realistic and not of some obvious CG creation.

Depth:  There is a zip line scene in the film that is pretty wow’ing.  There are some good angles and the first appearance of the monster that displays a fully 3-dimensional feel.

Black Levels:  Blacks are deep and inky.  Not much crushing if anything.  The cavern sequences are pretty well lit and quite visible in the dark.

Color Reproduction:  More of a natural display for the colors.  They come off a pretty bold.  Green is the color that pops the most and looks grand in this transfer.

Flesh Tones:  Skin is natural and consistent.  Stubble, scars and wrinkes are all quite visible in this transfer.

Noise/Artifacts:  Like, totally clean, yo!

Audio 

Audio Format(s): Norwegian 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English 5.1 DTS-HD MA

Subtitles: English, English Narrative, English SDH

Dynamics:  This is a well rounded and solid track that enhances the adventure.  It does an accurate job of recreating environments and contains lifelike foley effects.  Its not really an outstanding track by any measure, but it more than does the trick for making a great cinematic experience.

Low Frequency Extension:  The monster growl sure rumbles a bit, as well as its slamming around and attacking.  Aside from that, most of this is based on exploration, so the deep sound highlights come from the score.

Surround Sound Presentation:  The rear speakers are main ambiance and score.  Front speakers are put to very good use though.  There is a lot of interplay and perfectly pitched sounds reflecting the action and events depicted on screen.

Dialogue Reproduction:  Crisp and clean.  Center heavy.

Extras 

Ragnarok comes with no additional mediums of watching, but did have a really pretty slip cover.

Ragnarok: The Visual Effects (HD, 4:28) – A montage showing the coming together of a lot of the visual effects for scenes.  Many start with the basic shot and go through the process of each step of adding CG.

Theatrical Trailer (HD, 1:33)

Summary 

This is an incredibly fun adventure film that I hope more people will discover.  Its a big time homage mainly to Jurassic Park and Indiana Jones, but is also something of its own as well.  Ragnarok features some engaging and endearing characters as well as some great action and suspense beats.  The film is one of the better traditional treasure hunting/adventure movies I’ve seen in quite a while.  This Blu-ray comes with a great presentation, but is lacking quite a bit in the extras department.  Definitely see the film in some fashion and when it comes to purchasing it, nab it at a lowered price.