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Cast
Ahmed Ibn Fahdian (Antonio Banderas)
Herger
(Dennis Storhoi)
Buliwhf (Vladimir Kulich)
Olga (Maria
Bonnevie)
Directed
by John McTiernan
Written
by William Wisher and Warren Lewis
Rated
R for graphic violence, bloody battle scenes, and carnage
Running
Time: 107 minutes
Distributed by Touchstone
The
13th Warrior is a graphic Viking epic that
ends being a little farfetched but enjoyable.
Ahmed Ibn Fahdien (Banderas) is an emissary in Baghdad
during the 10th century.
After being banished from the kingdom after lusting
after a nobleman's wife, Ahmed encounters a group of Norsemen
or Vikings. The Vikings,
who are led by Buliwhf (Kulich), select Ahmed to join 12 other
warriors to travel north to defeat an evil enemy.
The enemy or "the eaters of the dead" are
revealed shortly after the warriors arrive to their destination.
"The eaters of the dead" are ferocious cannibals
that devour and kill anything in their path and travel through
the fog. Ahmed learns to overcome his fears and gain
confidence in the other warriors.
Ahmed and the Vikings eventually bond together to try
and explain and defeat "the eaters of the dead".
The
13th Warrior is an entertaining film, but minor
problems and a weak ending hurt the film.
The ending tries to be very dramatic like other medieval
films such as Rob Roy and Braveheart, but it doesn't work.
The climax is just there and it let's you down after
all the nice buildup throughout the movie.
The next problem to be addressed is
the romantic scenes between Ahmed and Olga (Bonnevie), who
is a local woman of the village that "the eaters of the
dead" destroy. These scenes were brought into the film to
tone down the testastorone level, but this doesn't work either. The 13th
Warrior is truly a film that is made for adult male audiences.
The script is pretty well adapted from
Michael Crichton's 1976 novel, "Eaters of the Dead." Crichton did not write the screenplay, but
he did have authority over the film as its producer. The script moves swiftly from beginning to end. There are good characters in The 13th Warrior, mostly because
of the performances by the actors, not the writing. However, the character development is very
soft.
The acting in The 13th Warrior is strong and focused. Antonio Banderas does an excellent job as an
ordinary man that changes because of the experiences of blood,
fear, and battle. All
the other actors in the film are mostly French.
I have never seen or heard of any of the actors that
play the fearless tough group of Vikings.
The cast does trigger a nice ensemble and really saves
the script from the weak character development. In addition, I really like the performance
by Dennis Storhoi, who plays the cocky and noble Viking Herger. Storhoi brought nice comedic relief and terrific
tone to the film.
The
13th Warrior is a very bloody and violent film. There are probably more than a dozen beheadings
in the film. I believe
that director John McTiernan was aiming at showing how violent
it was in the 10th century.
McTiernan does a truly effective and visionary job
of direction. His
battle scenes are filmed so chaotically that the audience
doesn't know who is fighting whom.
In relation, the scenes resemble what battles and war
were like. Some sequences and aspects in the film seemed duplicated from the
outstanding direction created by Mel Gibson in Braveheart. I don't think
a veteran director like McTiernan, whose credits include Die Hard, Predator, and
The Hunt for Red October, would copy someone's work. However, some shots in The
13th Warrior
did look very similar to Gibson's creative direction.
Overall, The 13th Warrior is a pretty good medieval film, which
is a category of films that hardly exists anymore. The film does get a little lost and has a few mistakes, but it is
not that bad of a movie.
Report
Card Grade: C+
Beastman's
Movie Reviews
Copyright,
1999 Joseph C.Tucker
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