Most critics take a dim view of Erik the Viking, with the comedy drawing the most persistent complaints. Praise is limited rather than shared across the reviews: Variety enjoys the premise and finds the Viking crew’s characters the chief attraction. Even the strongly negative Los Angeles Times review finds something to like in John Cleese’s restrained performance, though it notes how briefly he appears. There is little agreement that these strengths sustain the film.
The spread is wide, from an enjoyable comic adventure to a fantasy that offers neither laughs nor excitement. Empire locates the problem in a film caught between comedy adventure and the stranger, Pythonesque humour it never quite achieves. Other reservations concern flat fantasy sequences, poor direction and Tim Robbins’s peace-loving Viking. Two reviews lack accessible text, so their specific judgements cannot be established; the verifiable responses lean firmly negative.