13th Warrior

1 rating: -3.0

A movie directed by John McTiernan

Director John McTiernan takes viewers back to 900 A.D. in THE 13th WARRIOR. After courting "an untouchable" Muslim princess, Ahmed (Antonio Banderas) is banished and sent North as an emissary. When traveling from Baghdad to Saqaliba, he stumbles … see full wiki

Tags: Movies, Action, Adventure

Cast: Diane Venora

Director: John McTiernan

Release Date: 1999

MPAA Rating: R

1 review about 13th Warrior

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MAYBE I SAW A DIFFERENT VERSION?

Mar 26, 2000

by SusiDee34
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

-3

Pros: NOT A VERY LONG MOVIE

Cons: THE MOVIE WAS TOO LONG

This was a very confusing movie. I really don't like that dark and dreary background, all busy with people flying around, when you can't see the bad guys. Frankly I only watched this movie because Antonio Banderas was in it.

After watching the first ½ hour I still wasn't sure what the story was going to be about. It was loosely set up with a bunch of guys meeting in a cave or some other hovel and choosing 13 warriors to go to some other really weird place to kill some bad guys. Of course you knew Antonio was going to be the 13th warrior, for one thing he was the star and for another he was the only clean one there.

The story proceeds with a long horse back trek, then a boat trek and ends up God knows where. Somewhere along the way we pick up women. Don't know how that happened but of course we need them so Antonio can have a love interest in the story. We move on to the bad guys. They try to pass these guys off as some kind of mutant bearlike hairy beast creatures. You of course know they are men in bear suits, you aren't dumb after all. Turns out these bear people are also cannibals or cannibal like people. A very confusing script and hard story line to follow. Add a few different languages and dialects, I was lost.

Bear people attack, slaughter, mayhem, torture and at no time do you get a look at them because they still want you to believe they are creatures of some kind and not people gone bad. They even carry off their dead, so no clues there either! May I add they are also VERY fast. They prepare for the next attack and Antonio discovers they are men (of course it was Antonio, not the other 100 people in the village that have been living with these bear people for years) and that changes the whole idea of the story. If they are people and not monsters, then they can be killed and tracked!

There were a lot of religious overtones in this story which confused it even more. Maybe that was the idea, all these cultures had to get together and slay the evil monsters for it to take effect. I don't know, that evolved during that first ½ hour that confused me. Wasn't a particularly good movie, had never heard of it before (my son rented it or I wouldn't have heard of it now), thought the photography was poorly shot and the story line was pretty bad, there was no good music and Antonio never took off his shirt. In fact, couldn't wait for it to end so I could get back on the computer but I stayed for the quality family time (smile). Don't bother - it ranks up there with Titanic in my book and you know how I felt about that one!

Recommended:
Yes

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