Pathfinder starts out with the following floating text:
North America was invaded by
ruthless marauders intent on
settling its shores.
Something stopped them.
The opening scene shows a Native American woman stumbling on the ruins of a ship filled with dead vikings. So I think to myself, “Awesome! This is going to be a story about some creature from Indian mythology and how it killed all the vikings.” WRONG! Instead, I got a cross between Rambo II and Disney’s Pocahontas. It was like picking a chocolate and hoping for caramel, but getting toothpaste instead (/obligatory Jim Gaffigan joke).
Karl Urban plays the Pathfinder. Or at least he plays one of them, because it seemed like everyone was called “Pathfinder” at some point in the film. The word is used so much, my MST3K “we have title!” jokes grew stale 30 minutes into it. They do try to change it up a bit with dialog like, “Go. Find her. I must take a different path.” But when literary word play like that gets delivered from a dying man, I started to lose a little support for the WGA strike.
My parting advice: If this one ever crosses your path, find a different one.
Grade: D
John's Movie Musings 