Rating: 
Summary: A movie for fans of Beowulf & Grendel
Review: If you enjoy mythology and folklore then you should see this movie. Though Crichton changed the story a little and the characters names(example: Beowulf to Buliwyf) slightly the story remains loyal. If you have read some viking/nordic stories like Grendal or Beowulf then you will enjoy this movie more so than other people. Heck, I've had a friend of mine ask me who Joan of Arc was when we saw the messenger, but that has nothing to do with this...Anyway, I would have wished The 13th Warrior was a longer movie, it would be great to see more of Vladmir Kulich preformance as Buliwyf as well as the other important characters(not to be bias or anything). Which brings to my main disappointment: there is NO extra footage, NO interviews, NO behind the scenes, sort of goodies on the DVD! No goodies what-so-ever, nada, nein, nyet, none at all! That's what DVD's are for, right? (might be because the movie was on the shelf for two years before it was released, there is a long story behind that but I wont get it to it; I'm sparing you the headache *too late* LOL) I love this movie and I hope you do too. Read up about these myths, it's great; like king arthur, joan of arc, siddhartha, mayan and greek/roman gods...all classics! (sorry for the long and crazy review, it's just that good of a movie in my opinion.)
Rating:
Summary: The book was fine, and the movie is finer
Review: I must admit that I am an avid fan of the writings of Michael Crichton. This movie is based on his story, "The Eater's of the Dead." It is well done. Antonio Banderas was very well cast in his leading role. I have seen it five or six times, and enjoyed it more with each viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly Brilliant! As unique as the best of them
Review: I never liked Antonio Banderas...but in this movie he rocks!
He is a peaceful poet who is exiled from his home, far to the north where he meets a group of warriors. He joins them in a fight to protect a King's castle from supposed "beasts." He soon finds they are more like men. Even when the movie is over, you're left wondering if they were really men, or beast. Excellent thriller. Definitely in the top 5 of my dvd list. Up there with Gladiator baby!
Rating: 
Summary: A Classic Adventure
Review: I just watched this movie again-my 8th viewing-and I'm compelled to upgrade my rating. The 13th Warrior just gets better each time I see it. Buliwyf (Vladimir Kulich) is a man's man, wow, this guy is the hero every little boy wants to grow up to be. Herger the Joyous (Dennis Storhøi) is how every class clown visualizes himself, and then remembers himself as, once he becomes a senior-citizen; and Antonio Banderas as Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan Ibn Rashid Ibn Abbas Ibn Bashirevery has to be the graphic every romantic scholar has as his desktop.
The religious view of Herger regarding ones fate is pure: "The Old Father wrote the end of your life long ago, go and hind in a hole if you wish, but you won't live one moment longer: your fate is fixed. Fear profit man nothing."
You want an adventurer's prayer, well here's the Norsemen's prayer before battle: "Lo there do I see my father.
Lo there do I see my mother.
Lo there do I see my brothers and my sisters.
Lo there do I see the line of my people back to the beginning.
Lo they do call to me;
they bid me take my place among them in the Halls of Valhalla,
where the brave may live forever." Wow. Where's my sword?
I have to admit that Ahmed's prayer before the battle he believed he'd die in had me scrambling to find where it came from. He was asking the "Merciful Father," for forgiveness for "all we aught to have thought, but never thought; all we aught to have said, but never said; and all we aught to have done, but never done."
Whether in print or on film, it's lines like these that make a great Romantic Adventure great. They make you want to be more, to strive for more. Maybe even to acknowledge that there is something outside of you, as Jean-Pierre (Michael Lonsdale) pointed out to Sam (Robert De Niro) in Ronin, that is worth making a stand for, fighting for, even worth the ultimate sacrifice.
And it's lines like these that make a movie eminently rewatchable.
So, forgive me my original error, The 13th Warrior is a HUGE adventure.
Rating: 
Summary: VIKINGS AND FLESHEATERS!
Review: This was a real good movie,good actors, good story, good scenery, good production and costumes, but the action scenes were not filmed as good as it could have been. This is still a very good action movie with a great idea. I am surprised i did not read the book. The eaters of the dead were really scary looking and Banderas can act, but the vikings were the best characters. The difference between the two was fun to watch. There was definately something that was missing to make this a classic - I JUST CANT PUT MY FINGER ON IT! watch it anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Sloppy editing ruins the movie.
Review: Cut and paste editing ruins what is other wise a watchable film with Antonio and cast of mostly good actors playing warriors who try to save a village from being destroyed by an unseen army of early humans. Unresolved sub-plots of this movie could be fixed if they make a director's cut" of this movie. BUT I DOUBT IT. below average music score by Jerry Goldsmith.
Rating: 
Summary: ... epic is disaster
Review: The 13th Warrior proved to one of the most troubled productions in recent years. ... The movie has a couple of saving graces, which I will get to later. The time is 922 AD, and the date may be part of the trouble. We're in the Dark Ages. Those are the four or five centuries they skip over in high school. Even so, it doesn't feel historically accurate, though it looks it. While the story is purportedly based on the writing of an Arabian named Ahamad Ibn Fadlen, I suspect that that ancient writer had a very vivid imagination. Ahamad is played by Antonio Banderas, who, though a fine actor, is wrong as the hero of this testosterone-driven epic. In an all too quick prolog, Ahamad is driven from the court for having an affair with the sultan's favorite wife. He winds up in a desolate land where he is pursued by Tartars. He is saved by some friendly Norsemen and winds up going back to Scandinavia with twelve of them who are called to save a kingdom from some truly horrid creatures. Thus, he is the 13th warrior. From that point on, it is one bloody battle after another. There is enough carnage to fill four or five other movies, and if blood and guts are your thing, then this is your movie. I found it all a bit tedious. It was as though time were being filled in a rather thin story. Nothing makes a lot of sense here. There is a subplot about the king's son trying to undermine the warriors, but why he does this is unclear. It's an excuse for yet another fight, perhaps. Then, there is the enemy. There were such ugly beings still around back then, but it beyond belief that they were capable of the feats we see them perform in this movie. And the saving graces? The 13th Warrior is handsomely photographed. Some of the shots are breathtaking. The costumes and the set designs are first rate. The Scandinavian actors who play the other warriors are quite good. None of these elements are enough to save the picture. While watching this movie, I had a thought. Today, there are basically two groups making movies. There is the hip, cutting edge group which makes films like The Matrix, The Truman Show and Being John Malchovich. The other group is the formula crowd. Their movies are often brilliant, but they are in a style perfected over half a century ago. The 13th Warrior is definitely derived from the latter formula. I bring this thought up because you would think that, after all these years, it would be impossible to get the formula so wrong.
Rating:
Summary: a reliable narrator
Review: I liked this film and the bad reviews came as a surprise after having already watched it. What I like most about this story is the fact that the narrator, a nobleman who comes from a highly sofisticated society, is not a macho-man dare-anything hero, but a poet who has never in his life seen a battle. His cultural shock when he finds these barbarians --the Vikings-- is enormous and we just see everything through his eyes and from his point of view. The fact that he doesn't know the Viking language and needs first a translator (from Latin, which he doesn't speak either) and then to learn the Viking language is one of the difficulties that he finds and link us to him: we (us and him) don't understand anything. Another big problem that makes us sympathize with him is that he goes unwillingly on this adventure. When he is thrown in the middle of chaos and bloody fight, we see what he sees, that is, we don't realise that the enemies are men and not beasts until we see it through his eyes.
I am working with this film in class (I am a teacher) to show what a reliable narrator is: one that hasn't an ace up his sleeve, hidden tricks or knowledge that he doesn't share with the audience.
Rating:
Summary: I actually liked it
Review: I am the only person I know who liked this movie. While I found certain elements, such as Banderas's character learning to speak with the Vikings after hanging out at the campfire with them, to be a bit ridiculous, this was a fantasy movie, not a documentary. Has good battle scenes. I like battle scenes.
Rating:
Summary: Atmospheric, violent and err......really good.
Review: Unfairly savaged by the professional critics, THE 13TH WARRIOR is easily one of the best films in the genre. I enjoyed it far more than I did GLADIATOR. Most critics seemed to review the budget and the films troubled history rather than giving an objective view on the movie itself. This movie has more atmosphere, a better soundtrack, likable characters and more interesting locations, it's a far better movie all round. The scenes where they infiltrate the enemies haven are amazing. Something else that I found pleasing is that for a movie where a group of people are thrown together to fight an evil force they haven't just drawn the characters as say, the smart arse guy, the nasy guy who won't take orders from anyone, the nice and sweet guy, the nervous guy as in films like ALIENS which I think is overated in the extreme partly for that reason. In this film they all know they have a job to do and they work together to try and get it done. That's not to say that the characters don't have personalities, it's just that they are more subtle and realistic without every charcter being some obvious stereotype. The battle scenes are bloodthirsty, brutal and chaotic, which is the way they should be, although this is in no way the all action no story crapfest some have said it to be. I have recommended and shown the film to many people and literaly no one has been disappointed. The DVD is another story, while the picture quality is excellent the disc no extras of any note, hopefully John McTiernan's longer cut of the film will see the light of day sometime and be put out in a special edition, but i'm not holding my breath. I recommend this film without hesitation.
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