Norsemen yarns have ranged from Tony Curtis and Kirk Douglas axing their way through The Vikings to Antonio Banderas's Moslem teaming up with the longshipmen in The 13th Warrior.

Now Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake man Marcus Nispel depatches Valhalla's sons for more seaborne mayhem in this Vikings versus injuns blood-fest.

Karl Urban plays Ghost, who as a Viking nipper was left behind during a slave-raiding trip and raised by the peace-loving Wampanoag tribe in what is now New England.

It's all tickety-boo...until a guffawing Viking raiding party turns up, puts everyone to the sword and dumps the bodies in a festering pit.

Fortunately for Ghost, he's on a hunting trip out of town. But when he returns it's payback time with his first victim getting his eyeball hooked out on the tip of Ghost's long sword.

This is a little bit like 300 after particularly hard frost. Heads roll and arms are severed under a rain of blows from a gang of Norsemen who look like they've ram-raided a Stockholm Oxfam thrift store.

Don't think you're going to get an detailed anthropological study of the Norse era - you never really see this vengeful bunch of marauders and the only thing you hear from them is a grunt during a particularly arduous decapitation.

Based (loosely) on the Norwegian best foreign film Oscar winner, this is handsomely mounted - all moss greens and gunmetal greys - and boasts some impressive setpieces.

However, if you were after a penentrating insight into the world of the Viking then you're better off checking out Hagar the Horrible.

Tim Evans