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Erik puts together a team of men with similarly unresolved issues with the afterlife, and sets off on his journey. What he doesn’t realize is that among his men is a traitor, and that rescuing someone from a predicament YOU created might not come across as an act of selflessness. It sounds like a fable because it pretty much is, and beneath the movie’s sardonic wit (former Monty Python member Terry Jones wrote and directed) is a faint, but perceptible amount of humanity. Watching Erik lead his men is almost like watching one of those animated kids' movies where the moral is always some generic crap like "always follow your dreams" and "believe in yourself no matter how big a pain in everyone's ass you are".

It’s just hard not to root for such a good guy, and since Tim Robbins (still) looks like he belongs on a box of Wheaties, he's perfect for the role. The actors around him are workable, if not memorable. The only member of the cast I really had a problem with was - strangely - John Cleese as the villain, Halfdan the Black. Halfdan is a bloodthirsty yet frugal seventh century warlord-slash-businessman who believes in cutting costs and people's body parts off. Cleese turns in an effortlessly glib, mostly vintage portrayal. But his character doesn’t play a large enough role in the story, and in the end his presence ends up feeling almost like an annoying distraction, since you could argue the real threat is elsewhere. It’s not Cleese’s fault - but as written, Halfdan is a waste of his talent. But for my money, the real downer is the story's lack of payoff.

Despite its satirical flavor, Jones's script obviously has opinions for us about faith (or possibly lack of it), destiny, and how loyalty means different things to different people. I'm not saying this is high art, but there's a little more to this movie than you think - which is why the ending feels like such a copout. If a film suggests things but never follows through, or the story gives up on itself right at the end, then why are we watching? Erik the Viking concludes with what feels like the crappy alternate ending you'd see in the "special features" section on the DVD. It just doesn't fit the story, and when you add to that a boring villain, a movie that could have wrapped up with a lot of heart ends up feeling like a weak joke.

Despite this, I still find Erik the Viking pretty amusing, and I declare it deserving of its (very minor) place in the Monty Python Pantheon. Its smug, winking contempt for authority not only appealed to me and my slacker friends, but it went down well with Glogg and rotisserie chicken. We eventually moved on to other movies but the name stuck, and so did my interest in storytelling. So I say that if you don't mind seeing something new that's actually a little bit old, give Erik the Viking a try. And if you'd like to see something that's funny, but not quite enough to remember why you were laughing, that goes for you, too. If nothing else, be thankful to Terry Jones simply because without Erik the Viking this column - and the witty, insightful observations herein - might not even exist.

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