Yes weird pacing & plot butchery & odd additions & super compressed parts of the plot which is not caused directly by bad editing, but is caused directly by the need to fit into a trilogy marketing scheme. Hunger games had a similar problem in the 2nd movie which is, I was told, a set up for the 3rd movie & I refused…

Ha ha

It is as one person said a movie with the Arab ambassador standing in for us as our window into the action. I would not call it profound but it is emotionally moving as the Vikings & the ambassador learn to respect & trust one another.