Rent The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

Hole New World - The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey review by griggs

A medieval odyssey from New Zealand — and honestly, good luck telling which century is which from the landscape alone. Vincent Ward’s 1988 oddity follows a group of 14th-century Cumbrian villagers who tunnel through the earth and pop out in 1980s Auckland, which is exactly as baffling onscreen as it sounds on paper.

The Navigator keeps veering between tiresome and properly good. There’s one truly wonderful sequence — alarming, even — in which our bewildered villagers attempt to play real-life Crossy Road across a motorway, and a handful of effects shots that actually work. The problem is the stretches in between, which often look like a music video where someone’s mislaid the backing track. Lots of portentous striding, lots of meaningful glances, not quite enough to hold it all together.

It’s patchy, self-important and occasionally a bit of a slog, but the flashes of invention are just enough to stop it vanishing down its own tunnel.