Customer Reviews

13th Warrior, the

5 star:		(90)
4 star:		(80)
3 star:		(44)
2 star:		(27)
1 star:		(28)

 

 

It is a terrfic movie. The product was in great shape and there were no scratches on the disc at all.

This movie had the makings of an epic film that could have given competition to Lord of the Rings. It was a classic tale, with good casting and great costumes. The Viking band was reminiscient of the Seven Samurai or the Magnificent Seven. It was a little bit of a letdown when you realized the evil monsters were really just a bunch of cannibals, but they still turned out to be quite a challenge for the group of heroes. Had they not cut out so much of this movie, it would have been great, instead of just really good.

A definite buy. You will enjoy watching this one over and over again.

I found The 13th Warrior to be a highly satisfying experience in retelling the story of "Beowulf."

I have always been fascinated by the fact that Vikings had travelled all the way to Constantinople/Istanbul well before 800 A.D. That the Byzantine Emperor's Varangian guard was composed entirely of Norsemen. That great cultures --- such as the Middle Eastern Muslims and European Christians --- managed to rub elbows and coexist (more or less) harmoniously for centuries. (This is something that Islamists want us to forget.)

In "The 13th Warrior," an Islamic Arabian diplomat joins a band of Viking warriors as they travel to northern Europe to aid a king. The king is plagued by flesh-eaters, and thus the story of the Anglo-Saxon epic, "Beowulf," is retold through the sensibility of the Arab narrator.

Is the armour utterly authentic to this period? Nope! Fifteenth-century plate armour sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb. *But*... does this film capture the character of Norse and Anglo-Saxon warriors? Yes, plus it captures the feral qualities of some of the tribes who fought with the Norsemen. (I kept thinking of ancient Celts, who collected severed heads, as I saw the flesh-eaters of this film.)

"The 13th Warrior" is an unusual, thinking-person's epic with more to offer than the typical blood-and-guts sword-fight film.

I ordered this item at the beginning of December, and it came within 2 weeks for Christmas, which I really appreciated since I left ordering it until late! I couldn't find this particular DVD in any of the stores (rare?) and my husband really wanted it - I was happy to see I could order it on Amazon, and immediately did so. Great, quick service!

This movie is enterntaining. Banderas does a good job at humour although the movie does not require much acting. Overall a fun movie to watch.

Another of Michael Crichton's books made into a movie. This one followed the book fairly well and the pace developed well so that the movie itself made sense. This has good acting and fast paced enough that one can't get bored. I suggest reading the book as well. It's called Eaters of the Dead.

I saw this movie maybe 8 times on the TV and once in the movies theatre. I really loved the bad ass Viking characters. They were big, tough, and smart. One thing that appealed to me is that they wore armor from different places around the world (rome, spain, germany,etc), and even under danger they were always laughing. BUt just like the book (eaters of the dead) the characters werent explored. ya heres Ewogoth, kills a bunch of guys, then dies. There is little depth to the characters or the nordic ways. Both of those are what i want. And yet for some reason i really like this movie.

Anyone at all familiar with Anglo-Saxon literature, especially Beowulf, the Norse Sagas and the account of Ibn Fadlan, will quickly understand that this is a superior and intellectually sophisticated piece of creative film-making. Although it telescopes history from the 6th to about the 13th century, and throws in quite a chunk of what at best might have been folk-memory from a far earlier millenium, this doesn't bother me. It scores heavily in the accurate realization of the social values and fatalistic life philosophy of this period. Particularly good is the extreme pithiness of these Northeners' take on life. Let's be clear on this: these men were amazingly tough, but they weren't stupid, they were generous in spirit, and they had high concepts when it came to how a man should conduct himself. They just didn't believe in wasting words, or indulging in a lot of useless clever talk. They lived their lives in a harsh environment, at the very edge of a totally untamed natural world. The characters are excellently acted, and the direction is highly skilled. The location was effectively atmospheric, although a little too North American to be convincing --- the Denmark of Beowulf is in fact almost dead flat, although the idea of a cave behind a waterfall was imported from Iceland. The language question was very deftly handled. I didn't know they were speaking Gaelic, which somebody wrote, but they were certainly speaking Danish and Norwegian at times. Virtually all Northeners during this age could understand each other, although they would have spoken with varying accents. It seems tragic that the footage has obviously been mindlessly mutilated by what must have been a bunch of utter morons, the equivalent of all the dullards who have panned the film. Far too much is left unexplained and unresolved: the role of the nasty fellow called Unferth in Beowulf, for instance. I would very much like to see everything totally restored as the director originally intended it. It looks like almost an hour's worth has been chopped away.

Am I even watching the same movie?? I've been reading a lot of the reviews here about 13th Warrior. I was especially interested in people who gave it a bad review. While I agree with some of the points - it must have been cut because it gets choppy at times (as if there's a section missing which causes a loss of continuity and leaves questions and situations hanging out there) - I enjoyed this movie immensely! I've watched it many times and have never gotten tired of it. The warriors have beautiful horses too, which are a pleasure to watch! I'd LOVE to see a director's cut with deleted scenes and all the great extras so many DVD's have (such as Pirates of the Caribbean) - I'd have to buy more than one copy!.

I originally bought the movie because I like Antonio Banderas in most of his movies, but I was very pleasantly surprised with the other actors - ESPECIALLY Vladimir Kulich (too bad he was in a mask in his role in the TV series Angel - he has such a great face), Dennis Storhoi, Dennis Southern, Tony Curran, and Clive Russell. These guys are excellent! Very different characters but equally entertaining. Other warriors (such as Neil Maffin) weren't in the movie enough to be able to form much of an opinion. But the story itself is great even if they did change it from the book (some of the changes are for the better). Yes, I did read the book too, and they could have fleshed the characters out more. But all in all, it's a very entertaining movie and one of my favorites to watch often. I liked it well enough to search out and buy a set of lobby cards from the movie, which I will display on my walls.

As for the language discussions in the reviews - it's a MOVIE! Lighten up! Definitely 5 stars, even if there are scenes missing. MAKE A DIRECTOR'S CUT!!!!. We'll buy it!!

The idea of a culture clash between Moslem and Scandinavian civilizations is nothing new. "The Longships" with Sidney Poitier and Richard Widmark covered a lot of the same ground, even though it was campy and ridiculous. However, as laughable as The Longships was, it was actually a better movie and (believe it or not) more historically accurate! That's pretty sad.

Back in the 10th century, Ibn Fadlan (a real person) wrote an account of a Viking funeral he witnessed. In the 6th century, there was a Geatish hero named Beowulf (who was probably a real person: his uncle Hygelac was definitely real) who slew two ogres (Grendel and his mother) who stormed a king's hall and ate the inhabitants. Beowulf later became a king in his own right, but was killed by a dragon, but not before he slew the beast. Michael Crichton melded the two stories (in spite of the 400-year time span -no big deal) and in order to make it more plausible, changed Grendel and his mother into the "Vendol", a group of late-surviving Neanderthals who had had superhuman strength (Neanderthals were MUCH stronger than homo sapiens) and domesticated ponies. Crichton also changed the fire-breathing dragon into a column of torch-wielding horsemen. These ideas are so original and intriguing that I for one thought it would be nearly impossible to screw up even if the book was rather lame. It's a truism that bad books make better movies than good ones. Crichton and John McTiernan proved that a bad book can make a bad movie, too.

Unlike some people, I don't get all caught up in languages and accents when it comes to movies as long as there is some sort of consistency. I don't fault movies made in the English-speaking world for using English as the common tongue. If all the people in a village speak with more or less the same British accents -even if the movie takes place somewhere that English isn't even spoken, I don't have a problem unless (as in Dragonslayer) the main characters speak American. That sort of thing ruins the suspension of disbelief. The accents in 13th Warrior didn't bother me. After all, contrary to popular belief, "Viking" refers to a profession -NOT an ethnic group. Many Vikings were Slavic, German, English, Scottish, Welsh, and especially Irish. So the diversity among the thirteen warriors rings true in a way.

The problem for me came with the sets, costumes and props. Of the thirteen, only three or four wear the sort of clothes, armor and weapons the Vikings would have worn. The leader wears 15th century plate armor (which would be like depicting George Washington in Kevlar!). Another wears Conquistador armor and carries a Spanish-style two-handed sword. Another wears Gladiator armor! This movie had a large budget, so there's no excuse for this kind of nonsense. I just hope these people don't make a Civil War movie: They'll show the troops at Antietam wearing chainmail and armed with M-16s! Just stupid.

The movie actually starts out promisingly. When the warriors (who are played very well, which is why it gets two stars) volunteer one-by-one, it is a great scene. But once the 13 warriors get on the boat, it's all downhill. Not only does the movie degenerate into a half-hearted rip-off of The Seven Samurai (right down to the last battle being fought in the rain), but it seems to have been chopped down to get the maximum number of showings per day at the multiplex. Why have thirteen heroes when only four get any kind of attention? Most of them have one or two lines and I kept thinking "Is this guy one of the group?". Too many characters + too little time and attention = bad moviemaking. Akira Kurosawa isn't just spinning in his grave, he's clawing his way out!

A great premise, a first-rate cast, a great score from Jerry Goldsmith and beautiful scenery in the Pacific Northwest are all wasted in the hands of hack moviemakers like Michael Crichton.

If you want to see a band of heroes save a village, watch "The Seven Samurai" or "The Magnificent Seven". If you want Muslim/ Norse culture shock, watch "The Longships". Sure it's bad, but at least it's bad enough to be unintentionally funny. The 13th Warrior is just plain bad.