THE 13TH WARRIOR RATING: 5.5 / 10 --> Not good enough to recommend
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After lying on the shelf for over a year, this epic tale based on Michael Crichton's novel is released with little fanfare right before the Labour Day weekend, a time generally reserved for servings of crap cinema. Is it that bad? Not really. In fact, it does generate several scenes of decent combat, but all in all, a wasted opportunity.
PLOT: An exiled Arab is chosen to be the 13th warrior in a pack selected to defend a king's homeland against the legendary half-man/half-bear predators from the mist. The man is reluctant at first, but slowly acclimatizes himself to the group and acquires the aptitudes of a true warrior.
CRITIQUE: This movie starts off real slow and boring, has way too many scenes hidden by darkness, way too many lines lost due to badly spoken dialogue, but does offer a few invigorating sequences of violent battle and a couple of gory scenes as well. If you are expecting another epic classic a la BRAVEHEART, you may as well save your money right now, and rent a quick & easy pornos instead. But if you don't mind a rinky-dink story and enjoy seeing Viking-like men kick bear ass, this film might be of healthier interest to you. I thought the second half of the film was much more enjoyable than the first, but could not help but feel like there could have been so much more. For one thing, it would have been nice to SEE many more of the battle sequences, most of which were unfortunately masked by the darkness and lost to my weak eyes. It also would have been nice to toss some speech therapists the way of Antonio Banderas and the mighty Nordic men who all seemed to be mumbling their incoherent lines through the entire gig.
On top of that, this is not necessarily a picture that needs to be seen on the big screen. In fact, you may want to check it out on a lonely video evening sometime next year, when the bad blood behind the making of the film has all but dissipated. It may just go down better at that point. I also think this film would have benefited from a name change. Forget THE 13TH WARRIOR, which centres around the Banderas character, who to me, seemed little more than a whiny beeyatch. How about the original novel title of "Eaters of the Dead"!? Yeah, now there's a cool title! And those crazy man-bears sure were creepy enough to merit that designation. Which reminds me of a film that came out earlier this year, a cannibal tale it was, which entertained me so much more than this sub-par offering. It was called RAVENOUS (7.5/10) and supplied plenty of narrative, action and cannibalism to whet anybody's bloody appetite. Now there's a movie to see! This one, well, see it if you like films which start off slow, have plenty of scenes in the dark, a few good battle sequences and incomprehensible men talking bunk. Otherwise, stick to the cooler cannibal tale of 1999 and check out RAVENOUS!
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Antonio Banderas' full name is José Antonio Domínguez Banderas. Born in Málaga, Spain, Antonio originally wanted to play soccer professionally. His dream crashed when he broke his foot at the tender age of fourteen. That's when he started acting. He was a staple in the Pedro Almodovar films of the '80s, and he crossed over to American films in 1992 with THE MAMBO KINGS, which he did phonetically. He is a Libra, and currently married to big-breasted actress Melanie Griffin. Actor Omar Sharif's birth name was Michael Shalhoub. He was born in 1932, in the city of Alexandria, Egypt. He is also known to be a world-class bridge player. Author Michael Crichton stands 6'9" and was apparently exorcised in 1986. He may be best known for having written the novels upon which the hugely successful JURASSIC PARK films were based. Director John McTiernan is probably best known for directing the original DIE HARD movie with Bruce Willis. He also directed the third and crappier one, called DIE HARD: WITH A VENGEANCE. After an earlier version of this film performed badly in sneak previews, new scenes were reportedly shot under the direction of author Michael Crichton. The budget of this film apparently ballooned close $100 million. Screenwriter William Wisher Jr. is known to have written the screenplay for TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY. This film's title was changed from THE VIKINGS to THE EATERS OF THE DEAD to THE THIRTEENTH WARRIOR. Ironically, much of the movie was shot on location in British Columbia and other parts of Canada.
Review Date: September 5, 1999 Director: John McTiernan Writers: William Wisher Jr. Producer: Michael Crichton, John McTiernan and Ned Dowd Actors: Antonio Banderas as Ahmed Ibn Fadlan Genre: Action Year of Release: 1999 --------------------------------------- JoBlo's Movie Emporium http://www.joblo.com --------------------------------------- (c) 1999 Berge Garabedian
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