The Thirteenth Warrior I managed to hit this one with a friend of mine late last week, and I have mixed feelings. It was a good movie, with a similar feel to Braveheart, but I felt there was something just sort of ... missing.

The story focused around a man of peace, the poet Ibn Fadlan (Antonio Banderas), who is banished from his Arab home and runs into (and ending up running with) some vikings. He goes with this band to fight some sort of mysterious and powerful enemy after being told that "the thirteenth man will not be a north man" by a viking fortune teller. So they go to a viking village where this mysterious enemy seems to be attacking, and go to fight them. And they fight. And there is swordplay, blood, guts, chopped off body parts, the whole bit. Along the way they infiltrate the enemy tribe and find a bit more about them, and then proceed to the final battle, where our poet finds his courage (sounds a bit like the wizard of oz).

So what was right with the movie? Well, lots of action, blood, guts, and cool fighting. The sequence where Antonio learns to speak the viking language is pretty cool (though a bit of a stretch), as is the bit about the viking leader who wonders about his ability to "draw sounds" (write). The sets, props, makeup and costumes were top notch IMHO. The longboat, intricatly carved doors, pillars and buildings, along with believable clothing and environment were great.

Sounds good huh? So what was wrong?

Well, my buddy Cat5 doesn't agree with me, but I found it just sort of lacking. There is no dwelving into the motivations of the enemy tribe. They are simply there to attack with no explanation or provocation it seems. There is a scene with a fight between one of the hard ass vikings and a rich son-of-a-chief that could have led into something interesting, some sort of conflict, character development and that sort of thing, but was simply shown and never dealt with again.

From the previews I expected the first bit of the movie to detail more about Ibn Fadlan's life before banishment, and figure out a bit more of what sort of a guy he is, but the first 2 minutes of the movie dealt with this, giving basically what the preview gave you, with short cut scenes and a voiceover explaining that he had been banished.

I guess it just left me feeling a bit empty. This is not to say that it's not a good movie. It's a standard action flick. You may like it, love it, or liken it to Braveheart, but in my opinion, wait till cheap Tuesday. Posted by Arcterex at August 31, 1999 03:47 PM