This is an old­ish one. Not quite back to the era of the Viking, but more the era of big hair and bad music… so really not that dif­fer­ent. Erik the Viking is a lit­tle adven­ture from Terry Gilliam post Monty Python and Brazil but cer­tainly in the same, unhinged family.

This time out, the film cen­tres on the not-so-big-and-bad Erik (Tim Rob­bins), a reluc­tant Viking from a small vil­lage who’d rather travel the world than rape and pil­lage. He has an inno­cent charm, a reluc­tant want to kill any­one and a group of friends who make up for his lack­ing, berserker traits — as well as some of their dad’s thrown into the mix for some good old parental guidance.

Erik, done with the killing after unfor­tu­nately tak­ing the life of some­one he actu­ally, liked, decides to fig­ure out what he must do. In turn he dis­cov­ers he must return the sun and end the Dark Ages. This can be done with a big horn found on an island which takes you to Val­halla. Yeah… but it’s not the plot points that make this film what it is, far from it. This film is about adven­ture — and hav­ing fun whilst doing it.

The char­ac­ters in Erik’s group are all equally colour­ful: from a not-so-berserk berserker and his over-critical father to a Scot-accented cow­ard they’re all inter­est­ing (and funny) in their own right. John Cleese also makes an appear­ance as the neme­sis of Erik though this plot detail is of lit­tle con­se­quence. It’s about Erik, and the goal he wants to complete.

The biggest prob­lem with this movie — for me — was it’s length. It’s just too short. I for­got how quickly it was over and it left me want­ing more. As I counted them, there are about four main chap­ters and although all are funny and enjoy­able — Tim Rob­bins run­ning around on a ship fight­ing the enemy with an invis­i­bil­ity rag on his head (that doesn’t work) is one of the fun­nier moments — It ended with me think­ing, ‘Really?’ It seemed far too brief and although I enjoyed every minute from Cleese, Mickey Rooney, Rob­bins, Terry Jones, Eartha Kitt (yup, she’s in it) I just wish there were a bit more to it.