The Norseman (1978)

There are some “Steve Austin” style slo-motion effects here, just not the little sound effect that went with it when Lee Majors did his bionic stuff. Well there’s nothing remotely bionic about this terrible Viking adventure that does nobody any favours - not least us watching. Anyway, it’s all about a prince “Thorvald” (Majors) who sets sail from Norway to try and find his father who had left years earlier to try and find America. Braving the worst that the Atlantic can throw at him, and an equally salt-drenched script, he arrives only to find that there are folks already there and that they are no slouches when it comes to defending their turf from these axe-wielding interlopers. Question is, is dad still alive and if so - can they find him and/or rescue him? This isn’t helped by Jesse Pearson’s narration as he adopts a retrospective style of storytelling from the perspective of the young princeling (Chuck Pierce Jr) who is accompanying his pop on this quest. Cornel Wilde must also have had a tax bill to pay as his presence here is a far cry from his amiable rough and tumble days when he owned the screen, and Mel Ferrer must have owed someone a favour too. It’s really only Jack Elam who emerges with any semblance of dignity here, and that’s really only because he hides behind an huge great cape and issues mystic prophesies now and again along the lines of “abandon all hope ye who enter here”. It does liven up slightly for the last ten minutes, but this is just a poor, over-scripted and action-light exercise that isn’t really worth the tape.