THE 13TH WARRIOR
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): *
In a land of filth, muck and bad hair days, Antonio Banderas in THE 13TH
WARRIOR manages to keep his GQ looks. With spotless, well-pressed
robes, he must know the location of the only dry cleaning establishment
in the tenth century land of the Vikings in which the story is set.
Eventually his perfect coiffure will be marred, but, even with a few
facial scars, his beauty will shine through. This is good since there
is precious little else to do in the movie other than admire Banderas.
The script by William Wisher, Jr. and Warren Lewis, based on Michael
Crichton's novel called "Eaters of the Dead," is ludicrously bad.
Insults include such asinine epithets as "you pig eating son of a
whore." And when Ibn Fadlan (Banderas) says "ah" a couple of times in
mild pain, he is reproached by the story's female lead (Diane Venora).
"That's a woman's sound," she admonishes him.
Along with Banderas, who is chosen to be the thirteenth warrior, are
actors playing the 12 other warriors plus a large assortment of
supporting cast and extras. Since no visible acting occurs in the
movie, there is little point in listing any more names. Suffice it to
say that most of the people approach their roles as Banderas does, which
is to spend most of the time in a pensive and vacant stare, as if he
were contemplating why he let his agent talk him into this film in the
first place.
For the first 15 minutes of the movie, when most of it is in unsubtitled
Norse (I'm not making this up), Ibn goes north with the other warriors
to save another settlement from a group so scary that they dare not call
its name. These super strong bad guys like to eat the dead.
Unlike EYES WIDE SHUT in which the studio had to insert digital fig
leaves in the form of people in order to obtain a marketable R rating,
THE 13TH WARRIOR suffers no such problem. The MPAA does not need to
threaten this film with an NC-17 since human beings are only being
hacked to death, with severed arms, sliced off heads and blood spurting
everywhere. The humans in this movie commit atrocities, not sex, so
there is no need to protect the viewers' eyes.
After almost two hours of mindless and uninteresting action, the movie
finally stops. Never does it realize that its one salvation would as a
parody. From beginning to end, it treats its subject with the
seriousness of a documentary. Not once does it have the good sense to
lighten up.
THE 13TH WARRIOR runs 1:52. It is rated R for bloody battles and
carnage and would be acceptable for older teenagers.
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