The 13th Warrior (1999) a review by Christian Pyle
"The 13th Warrior" Directed by Michael Crichton and John McTiernan Written by William Wisher and Warren Lewis Starring Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Dennis Storhøi, Vladimir Kulich, Omar Sharif, Anders T. Andersen Official Site: http://movies.go.com/the13thwarrior/index.html Better Sites: http://www.pnmp.net/13thWarrior/ http://www.powerup.com.au/~stott/13th.html Grade: D-
In "The 13th Warrior," Arab poet Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan (Antonio Banderas) finds himself kicked out of Baghdad for feeling up the king's old lady. With his translator (screen legend Omar Sharif in a small role), Ahmed heads north to act as ambassador to the Northmen (Vikings). He finds a group of warriors mourning the loss of their king. A messenger soon arrives from another kingdom requesting assistance. A soothsayer says that thirteen warriors must answer the summons, twelve Northmen and one outsider. Thus, Ahmed becomes the "13th warrior."
On the trip, Ahmed manages to learn the Vikings' language by listening to their fireside conversations. A bit far-fetched, it's true, but we have to swallow it if this flick is going to manage a few lines of dialogue amidst the grunting. Ahmed, who's called "Ibn" by the Vikings, forms friendships with Herger the Joyous (Dennis Storhøi) and the Viking leader Buliwyf (Vladimir Kulich).
When they arrive in the other kingdom, the thirteen warriors discover that they're facing an army of supernatural cannibals that live up in the caves. Hereafter, most of the movie is battle scenes: the cannibals attack the Vikings, the Vikings attack the cannibals, the cannibals attack the . . . well, you get the idea. Just to add some action, there's also a Viking vs. Viking duel.
Other movies insert scenes between the fights; these scenes are called character development. I suspect that "The 13th Warrior" had a better script at one time and that it fell through the cracks because of the tag-team direction. The movie started off in the hands of John McTiernan (you'll notice a lot of similarities between "Warrior" and McTiernan's "Predator," including the chittering jungle sounds). Somewhere along the line, McTiernan bailed and Michael Crichton took over. Crichton, whose novel "Eaters of the Dead" is the basis for "Warrior," has directed a small assortment of goofy science-fiction "thrillers": "Westworld," "Coma," "Looker," "Runaway." Their result of their consecutive efforts is a murky and pointless movie.
Perhaps what "The 13th Warrior" needs more than anything else is a villain. The "eaters of the dead" are a faceless mob in blackface. They have no personality, and by the end they don't even seem particularly threatening. The audience has no target toward which to channel its aggression. McTiernan should know about the importance of an interesting villain; it was his "Die Hard" that made villains seem fun and attracted big-name stars to the evil roles in action films.
"The 13th Warrior" suffers from a lack of vision. It wants to be "Predator" meets "Braveheart" meets "The Magnificent Seven" meets "Dances with Wolves." With so many competing goals, all it can do is echo what it might have been. It might have been a satisfying action film. It might have been a beautifully-rendered medieval epic. It might have been a thought-provoking examination of the meeting of cultures. What a shame it turned out to be nothing in particular.
Bottom Line: If you want to see Antonio swing his sword, rent "The Mask of Zorro."
© 1999 Christian L. Pyle
Read my reviews and others at the Mad Review: http://www.madreview.com/main.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews