The 13th Warrior (1999)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Admirable film.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This movie is a bit contradictory to me. It's a movie worth seeing if we just want pure entertainment, but it does not have enough quality for us to think of it as a really good movie. The action centers on the participation of an Arab ambassador in a Nordic military expedition, sent to protect an isolated village that was being attacked by some sort of evil creature. And the weaknesses of the plot begin to appear before us: what would motivate an Arab sultan to want to maintain diplomatic ties with the tribal peoples of Northern Europe? They could never help in case of war because they are too far away, and commercial relations were impracticable at that time because of the enormous distance between them. It seems the idea did not come from the script, but from a novel in which the film is based, but it does not matter. It's still hard to swallow. Another point that drew my attention in the negative is the portrayal of the Norse as an illiterate people who needed an Arab to write their own story. The writer certainly forgot that the Norse are the inventors of a particularly well known writing system, the runic alphabet. Even for an age where teaching was rare, it is believable that Beowulf, as a prince, had at least some notions about this writing system, thus not needing a foreigner to "draw sounds" for him.The strong point of the film is the combat scenes. They were thought out in detail and deserved the attention of the technical team. The idea of ​​"bearsmen" is also good, but it is difficult for me to believe that the Norse, warlike as they prove to be, believed in that story of the creature of fire. There is a huge contradiction latent in that: if the Norse are bellicose and bragging, why would they flee from an army with torches thinking it is a hellish serpent? In the first attack it is quite evident that they are men, not frightening creatures out of our worst nightmares. There's no sense in really believing that.António Banderas is literally the man of the movie. He appears, he shines, he makes a good participation. Omar Shariff also deserves an honorable mention for his fleeting appearance. He's an old-timer, with excellent diction and he is perfectly at ease in the role. The sets and costumes are good, they make the audience feel truly Northern Europe and the Viking environment. It's a shame that the script has not been reviewed and improved, as this would have made this film substantially more positive.

I really got a kick out of this old-fashioned adventure yarn which features a band of heroic and noble Vikings battling an army of cannibalistic inhuman warriors. Maybe it's the epic-feeling spirit of the film, the worthy dialogue or the strong and just characters which reminded me of a Cameron Mitchell Viking movie on a big budget, or Jerry Goldsmith's sweeping score. Despite tons of post-production difficulties (Michael Crichton having to re-edit the film and Goldsmith re-scoring the original music), the film looks and sounds spectacular and even more impressive in some ways than the following year's GLADIATOR. The plot is effectively simple and in some ways recalls THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN: a band of heroes are brought together to protect an ageing king and his town from an unknown enemy.The fact that Hollywood hasn't made a film about the Vikings for decades gives this movie a freshness often lacking from modern-day adventure yarns; the mostly Norwegian cast also helps to add to the authenticity. Of course, audiences wouldn't bother watching this film without a familiar face or two in the cast, thus we have imported star Antonio Banderas in the role of an Arab forced to join with the Vikings and take up arms again a seemingly indestructible foe. Banderas is reasonably good in his part, and walks a fine line between being friendly and likable and tough and heroic. Also appearing is Omar Sharif, although for name value more than anything else (he only appears in the film's prologue, helping to explain some of the story).The best thing about this film by far is the photography, which is simply magnificent. The landscape is all misty forests and rolling hillsides and the colour is lush and beautiful and always stunning. In fact this is one of the most beautifully-shot films I've ever seen. Even the night-time sequences are lovely to look at, with the actors lit by shimmering red glow from the flames of their fires. I love the mystical aspects in the first half of the film, with the hidden enemy being portrayed as monsters, and the mysterious "fire dragon" which appears spookily out of the mist to menace our heroes. I love the eerie descent into the bowels of the earth which is great stuff and evokes an almost Lovecraftian atmosphere. The action scenes, too, are impressively rendered and follow in the recent trend of Hollywood's historical epics by offering plenty of graphic gore and violence to add to the movie's realism. There are more than enough reasons to watch and enjoy this movie, although surprisingly it wasn't a hit; I find it to be perfectly acceptable viewing with the only minor flaw being that it's perhaps not as exciting as it could have been.

A nice, high-echelon, young Arab (Banderas) is sent as an emissary to the Bulgars in 922 AD. At the time, the Middle East was the center of civilization. While Europeans were living on a flat earth, the people of Egypt were measuring its circumference. They invented soap. They also invented algebra, for which may God forgive them.Banderas is more or less shanghaied into joining a band of Norsemen returning to their home to protect it against the people of the mist, the Wendlos. I don't know if the Wendlos existed or not but they do in this movie.Banderas is revolted by the slovenliness of the Vikings. And who can blame him. They pass around a bowl to wash their faces in, but they also spit in it and one guy blows his nose into it using the one-nostril side slip method. But, like a good cultural anthropologist, he adapts to the ways of his hosts without trying to convert them to his religion or his customs.I was watching this on YouTube and at this point, Disney blocked the middle third of the film because of some copyright dispute. Therefore, it appears, I missed Diane Venora, which is a damned shame. Although, come to think of it, they could have used Mia Maestro because they look so much alike. I wonder if they are one and the same person. Has anyone ever seen Venora and Maestro together in the same room at the same time? No? I thought not.The ending is a sword-slinging bash in the rain and the mud. The Wendlos are all bundled up in bear costumes and whatnot so it's hard to tell whether they're supposed to be human or not. Someone has suggested they were Neanderthals but that's out of the question. It's out of date by some 50,000 years for one thing.Guess who wins the slogging match? RIGHT, the Norsemen and Banderas, fighting the enemy together, drenched in blood. The Vikings were pretty destructive when you get right down to it but they left us a few souvenirs -- "skiff", "shirt," "Thursday", "Friday," and so on.

Greetings from Lithuania."The 13th Warrior" (1999) was always one of my favorite movies of John McTiernan. Maybe that's because i've seen this movie when i was 15- 16 years old, and i saw it like 5 or 6 times, yes, loved this film at the time. What still strikes me the most is how superbly atmospheric this movie was. Set design was superb, you can clearly see many objects build specifically, and they weren't just cheap sets. Actors were all superb and did a great job for this material, only wished to see late Omar Sharif more on screen. This movie plays like a adventure movie (in the beginning), later it becomes like "Predator" and at the some sort of "Siege" movie. All genres clicked in here, thus creating this superbly involving and brutal world.Overall, "The 13th Warrior" was the last great flick of the great John McTiernan, who's carrier after this movie basically went into oblivion (but not because of this movie). Shame. Having this skill of creating superbly involving, intense and plausible looking entertaining movies, he should definitely would be still very helpful around. "The 13th Warrior" is the proof.