The Ash Lad: In the Hall of the Mountain King

Ash Lad is an inoffensive, comical take on old Nordic fairytales involving princesses, noble quests and mountain trolls. That's about it. Other reviewers on these pages comparing it favourably to The Lord of the Rings chapters are just trolling themselves and being frankly ridiculous in the process. A much better comparison is with The Princess Bride. Neither film takes itself too seriously, but Ash Lad lacks the witty script, the interesting sub-plots and the romantic chemistry between the Princess and her would-be-commoner rescuer of The Princess Bride. What it does do which is somewhat different from the regular tropes featuring in this genre, is to have a hero, who's not that heroic and not even the sharpest tool in the shed. But he is a punter with a long-term goal, who is ready and willing to play the long game to achieve his quest, aided and abetted by his even thicker two brothers. Up against them, besides the natural and supernatural obstacles is a quartet of bumbling, stumbling villains, whose leader, Prince Frederic, gets most of the good lines. Judged from other reviews on this page, I must have been lucky seeing an English sub-titled version of the film, as the dubbed version doesn't seem to win universal acclaim. The production looks quite good and makes great use of some spectacular location scenery, but don't expect any groundbreaking special effects in the CGI department. Again like the PB, Ash Lad is generally content to use miniatures, clever photographic angles, costumed capers and puppetry to achieve its supernatural content. The acting is sound, without being stand out and I think the production team erred a little in only having limited interactions between Princess Kristin and Esben. The script didn't really give them enough time to build up a believable rapport, before they were separated until well into the third act of the movie. It also just needed to be a little more cleverer with the dialogue which is frequently run of the mill, to be kind. A few more wickedly sexy lines like Kristen's last line in the movie regarding enjoying riding with her, would have gone down a treat with adult viewers of what is ultimately, not a lot more than a kids' film.

This is a very old fashioned fairy tale that has been banned for at least half a century, and probably an entire century, by the powers of Hollywood. The censors didn't get to this one. It doesn't have the Hollywood formula of the usual hatefulness. This was written with love and wit. It's very reminiscent of the better parts of Anderson and Grimm, without the Grimm racism. It's very funny, and very entertaining, and thus hated by the Beavis and Butthead crowd that so often come here in this present age. Perhaps the day will come when that sort of hatefulness will be a minority instead of popular opinion. This is how to make a film for the "non control freaks".

I started watching this film assuming I'd move on to something else but was drawn in by the beautiful and unusual scenery (I'm not familiar with the landscape of Norway). The storyline wasn't especially original but contained enough elements of the "modern fantasy film" and a traditional fairy tale to be interesting. Modern elements included anachronistic dialogue and injections of somewhat juvenile humor. The traditional fairy tale elements included episodic encounters with supernatural beings and a series of seemingly useless items picked up by the main character that later come in handy. (There was one item I'd totally forgotten about until came into play at the end of the film in an important way.) I also liked how the brothers ended up working together to accomplish their mission and learned to see their seeming incompetent brother in a different light. The film isn't perfect of course. Some of the dialogue seemed a bit clunky (but I was watching a dubbed version....I have a feeling the dialogue worked better in Norwegian.) The special effects are not bad (though not as slick as some American films) and don't distract. Overall, enjoyable.

This might be a fine film but I can't stand dubbed movies. I want to hear the original language with subtitles. I don't care if I need to read because I'm a very good reader. The original language gives the movie the feel the film makers wanted when they made the movie in the first place. For those who aren't good readers, learn to read. For those who are too lazy to learn to read I don't have any sympathy. I know my review might anger some people but too bad.

I was whole heartedly surprised when I encountered this rare jewel of a movie. An adventure that watches like a good book reads, Ash Lad blends the best of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson, Princess Bride with Jack and the Beanstalk in a way that engages and entertains everyone from the very young to the young at heart. Beautiful scenery, nice musical score, great CG, and top notch cinematography work together to make a movie that should be a part of every family's library. One note for parents- the troll and forest nymph scenes may be a little intense for kids under 4, but otherwise is a clean story with a moral ending. It will make you tell others, Look what I found!! 😁

It had views of forests that I've longed to see in movies but never got satisfied before. It's gorgeous, funny, but full of adventure. The special effects are super. Under dog parts were realistic. Lots of movies are boring, this one was not.

I'm not sure how long this film actually was; it seemed to be approximately endless. All I remember was yelling and screaming from beginning to end, and disengaged voiceovers. I can't begin to express how much I loathe dubbed cinema. It may have been good in original form. Dunno. In this form, it ranks among the worst I've seen.

This movie deserves a lot of praise. It has a great story line, that is easy to follwow for the kids. The shots are beautyful and clean shots of mavelous lanscapes. The

Seriously? Could you have made it more obvious? A 10, 7, 9, all reviews going on about how incredible the acting was, the production values, etc. They either worked on the film or are related to cast or crew. The 2 bad reviews were pretty spot on, well, at least the higher of the two. The acting was a bit stiff, the dubbing wasn't bad, but I would have preferred sub titles. The hero reminded me of Ron Weasley, only more accident prone and dumber. (Rupert Grint is brilliant, so not really fair), (and they blatantly ripped off the Marauders Map) the Princess was pretty unlikeable, no wonder all of the would be rescuers were after the gold reward, and not her hand in marriage, but she was straight out of Disney's "Brave", only not as appealing - and it's gotta be tough being 2nd to an animated Princess! The Prince wanting to her only because it's the only way to be the king was yanked straight from Shrek's Lord Farquaad, in motivation, stature, looks, even down to having a huge stupid brute as his henchman. Heck, they even took Shrek's swamp! Hey, wait a second, was Shreck based on a Norwegian folk tale? Hmmmm ...... OK, maybe it does only deserve a 3. The scenery was beautiful, so I'll bump it up to a 4 for that!

Don't know why there are some really awful reviews or attacks on people who liked it. It's definitely not Lord of the Rings but you know that going in. It's a good little story that's well worth watching. I could see us watching it again sometime. It's clean fantasy for the family.