The 13th Warrior (2024)

The 13th Warrior

“The 13th Warrior” finally makes its way to theaters over a year after it was completed. It appears that this is one production run amok, as implied by every sign. However, despite the fact that these scenes display a lot of cash worth millions of dollars on the screen, there seems to be no logic behind such extravagances.

The only problem is that extracting the story from all those endless scenes of fights and bloodshed could be even harder than it seems. The film’s concept appears to have been formulated beginning with the special effects at the bottom before moving up to other aspects. Instead of starting with a great tale and then adding f/x whenever necessary, it starts with f/x and later crowbars in the story during pauses in action.

That might not have happened. In fact, this could be an exciting tale. This is taken from two different sources: Eaters of the Dead Crichton’s novel of 1974- along with Beowulf, an ancient English poem that survives today. One tells about real-life adventures undertaken by Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan who was an Arab poet and he travelled north through Viking lands in tenth century AD.

The other is Beowulf; the Old English epic poem. Because at some point early in its production it must have been decided that more exciting things would happen if instead they had never told these stories but just went ahead and showed unending scenes involving long haired Vikings fighting with swords.

Ahmed (Antonio Banderas), hoping perhaps for another swashbuckling success like “The Mask Of Zorro,” plays a poet in love with his king’s wife whose fate hangs by a thread. Threatened terribly for his misconduct toward a Kings wife, Ahmed listens to Omar Sharif (a veteran courtier)’s advice and becomes wise enough to go northward as ambassador to Vikings where he is welcomed as some curiosity or challenge.

The Norsemen would laughingly insult him, secure in the knowledge he didn’t comprehend anything they were saying; however, this is depicted through a series of shots where he learns their language and then answers them back to their own amazement. Before long, he is asked to speak a poem at someone’s funeral a scene that by mistake turns out to be an amusing first poetry slam in recorded history.

The Vikings are having a tough time. There is some bloodthirsty band of warriors that has returned from ancient times claiming to have bears inside them: I don’t recall who). These evil spirits have come back from ancient times as far as I can remember. But only thirteen warriors will be chosen for the fight against these wicked menaces. Of course Ahmed will be number 13. He is not a warrior but rather a poet although he quickly learns how to use a broadsword.

That’s pretty much it, except for miles and miles of slaughter (after watching nothing but non-stop carnage, it’s somewhat unsettling to see the movie wrap up on such a goody two shoes note with something like “a useful servant of God”). Directed by John Mc Tiernan (Die Hard 1988; The Thomas Crown Affair), the film had additional footage shot under Crichton’s direction after completing initial version that was said to have performed poorly during sneak previews.

The result, unfortunately was the same: yet another instance of special effects out of control that do nothing more than gallop from one big budget set piece to next without spending time to tell us anything about characters or make us care about them.

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