Peace-loving viking Erik (Tim Robbins, JACOB'S LADDER, in a role meant for Tom Hulce) isn't all that into raping and pillaging to begin with when Helga (Samantha Bond, DIE ANOTHER DAY) enlightens him about the circular nature of the viking raping/pillaging enterprise (before she is promptly killed by cameo rapists Jim Carter [RED RIDING] and Jim Broadbent [VERA DRAKE]). Even more estranged now from the behavior his contemporaries, Erik seeks the counsel of wise woman Freya (Eartha Kitt, FRIDAY FOSTER) who tells him that Fenrir the wolf has swallowed the sun and plunged the world into the age of Ragnarok. Erik decides to go to Asgard and waken the sleeping gods to petition them to end Ragnarok. To do this, they must find the Horn Resounding and blow into it three times (the first time will take them to Asgard, the second will waken the gods, and the third will return them home). The blacksmith's assistant Loki (Antony Sher, YANKS) warns blacksmith Keitel (Gary Cady, MONA LISA) that the bottom will drop out of the sword-making business if Erik ends the age of Ragnarok. While Keitel accompanies Erik and the other men out to sea, Loki - who covets the position of blacksmith - warns the sadistic Halfdan the Black (John Cleese, A FISH CALLED WANDA) of Erik's intentions and Halfdan and his men set sail to stop them. Erik and his men manage to lose Halfdan's boat in a thick mist and are able to reach the island of Hy-Brasil by way of a sneezing dragon. When Erik defends Hy-Brasil against Halfdan's assault (Halfdan himself manages to escape) - in a failry hilarious manner - the king of Hy-Brasil (director Terry Jones) gifts him the Horn Resouding, but Loki and Keitel are still in cahoots to prevent Erik and his men from reaching Asgard. Although a funny, adventure film with some quintessentially eighties visual effects and wonderful set design (by the conceptual artist who would go onto design the LORD OF THE RINGS films), ERIK THE VIKING was largely a box-office failure. Director Jones reckons that the audience was expecting a Monty Python film. It has some Python-esque dialogue (some exchanges of which are indulgently-overlong) - including some subtitled dialogue by a Japanese actor imposed by the Japanese co-producer - and a wry John Cleese performance (the end credits also have some Python-esque names of characters like Jennifer the Viking, Unn-the-Thrown-At, Horribly Slain Warrior, and Even More Horribly Slain Warrior), but Jones' favors production value rather than making a jokes out of the budgetary restraints and there are some moving sequences of a sort not found in the Monty Python films (or even Terry Gilliam's TIME BANDITS, which features some of the Python players and its a bit more in the spirit). Jones wrote the saga of Erik the Viking for his son and was inspired to turn it into a film; the childrens book version that Jones published has nothing to do with the film's story (although he hopes it will help the sales). Jones was dissatisfied with the initial 107 minute cut of the film and made some additional trims (he was restricted to cutting scenes that did not effect the soundtrack since there was no time to go back to the sound elements) before the US theatrical release by Orion. When the film arrived on home video in the UK, Jones was able trim the film of an additional ten minutes or so. The director's son's cut was edited by the Bill Jones (George Akers [CARAVAGGIO] edited the original cut) and runs over a half-an-hour shorter than the original and almost fifteen minutes shorter than the director's cut. While some funny moments are lost in this shorter cut, the reshuffling of some scenes results in a more logical ordering (Erik's frantic search for Freya now follows the title card rather than abruptly following his scene with his grandfather [Mickey Rooney], and Loki's trek through the snowy mountains towards Halfdan the Black's fortress no longer interrupts Erik's organization of the seating in the longboat), and the pacing is tighter. Jones claims not to know why he was not more hands-on in the editing phase of the film; that he ended up cutting over a half-hour to reach a satisfactory cut suggests that there were more reasons for its poor reception besides its deviations from the Python template.