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.

Deep Blue Sea I came into this movie with very low expectations. I figured it would be good for a quasi-decent laugh, some bad special effects, and the ability to leave the movie saying "you know, it was ok I guess..." Well, I wasn't totally right, but not totally wrong either. While the movie was your standard plot line, harkening right back to Frankenstein (man plays with nature, nature fights back and kicks man's ass), it was more than your standard action flick on a Tuesday night.

First, the basic plot line: at a secret research facility, with the aim of curing mentally deteriorating diseases, scientists (and a few studly guys who swim with sharks) have found that shark brain matter will do the trick. So they grow a couple of sharks with bigger brains so they can harvest more brain matter, the completely unexpected result being the sharks get smarter. Sharks decide they want revenge, and go about eating people.

Pretty simple huh?

The actors are pretty good, and a couple of familiar faces will show up, one being Samuel L. Jackson, the other being someone who I could have sworn played "switch" in The Matrix (the imdb proved me wrong however).

The special effects are very good. The sharks are mostly very convincing, and the underwater scenes are very good. There were a few sharks-ripping-things-apart scenes shown from far out that were kinda cheesy, but for the most part the FX rocked.

The movie itself is fun. A standard action thriller yes, but with a few twists and turns. I didn't expect it to end like it did. I was able to tell you exactly what was going to happen at other times. And sometimes I just thought to myself "I didn't see that coming!" The movie is engineered to give the audience a start now and again, and the movie does this perfectly. The pace is well set, and there is nary a boring moment. I guess I went in with pretty low expectations and came out with a pretty good movie, which is why I give a 4/5 (and I'm a hard marker).

A word of caution though. As this is a movie about man eating sharks, they don't spare the gore when the sharks do eat people. There's blood, guts, and bodies being ripped in two. Not completely un-needed violence, but something to keep in mind. Don't say I didn't warn you :)

You can find the official site here.