Pathfinder (2007)

When a native woman finds the remains of a viking ship on the shores of North America 500 years before Columbus she find the lone survivor to be a young boy. She adopts him as her own and 15 years later he is at the brink of manhood. That is when hilarity ensues. The Vikings, led by Fran Tarkington, come back and start killing everyone for no apparent reason then they are bigger and stronger and, well, they are Vikings. The only hope for the whole American continent lies on the shoulders of this young man because only he knows the ways of the Viking.

Trivia: Actors wore hockey shoulder pads underneath their viking costume to make them appear larger and fiercer. Despite knowing that the Vikings' helmets didn't historically have large animal horns on them, the film makers decided to add them in anyway. This would work with the modern audiences who have an ingrained stereotype of what a Viking should look like in their mind. Moreover, the horns make the Vikings look more terrifying. The Vikings in the film are actually speaking Icelandic, which is the closest language to old Viking. The Pathfinder's house was constructed around a real tree which was found at the location and had to be re-enforced. The design of the Indian huts was partly inspired by the famous opera house in Sydney, Australia.

Apparently Vikings a vicious hulks of men bent on killing everybody they can find but it also appears that they don't make Vikings the way they used to because a man who was trained as a Viking at the age of 6 (and wasn't good at it then) can grow up in another culture for 15 years with only a single sword to train with and without help from anyone else, a young native woman, and a brave who is mute is able to kick the butts of the biggest Vikings in the group. I will admit, the first few Vikings that this guy kills could have underestimated him but you would think that after a while they would realize that he could fight. This movie also seems to want to point out that the Natives are in the same situation. The wise old pathfinder and elder of the tribe is able to fight and hold his own against the Vikings when the young warrior braves just rush in and get slaughtered in seconds (because they failed to head the white man's warnings. So white man who grew up as a native and old guy = good fighters. Young Indian Braves = bad fighters. I never thought I would say this but Antonio Banderas did it better, as in portraying the Viking culture in the 13th Warrior. Oh yeah, I forgot. They used stock footage of an avalanche. Stock footage!? What the heck? It was right out of a documentary about alpine skying or something. Uggghhh!