The Digest
Antonio Banderas plays a privileged young poet in Baghdad. After falling
for a very beautiful and married woman, he is banished from the country
to serve as Ambassador to everybody. He travels the land learning about
other peoples and tribes and teaching them about Baghdad and the Muslim
faith. We aren't given a timeline, but I assume it's the 11th or 12th
century.
After being chased by a group of Nomads, he happens across some Norsemen.
They begin to have a cultural exchange during which the Norsemen are
summoned back home to rid the land of these creatures that can not be
named. They consult a medicine woman who tells them that only 13 can
go and Antonio must be one of the 13th. So he packs up and heads up
north. Now let me pause right here…Ain't no way in the world someone
is going tell me I need to go off and fight some monsters and I don't
question it. Especially when I don't speak the language. How am I supposed
to understand "RUN"? Antonio was like. Hmmm okay. Whatever. Oh I forgot
he learns their language in like an hour so he can understand "run!"
What-ever.
Here is where it gets corny and cliché. They go there try to save
the town and lose a few men. Fight. Lose some more. A few scenes to
show that Arabs were technologically advanced. More fights. More losses.
Obligatory romp in the sack before he goes off to fight again. Goes
to their turf to fight, they lose another one. Go back to town and prepare
to fight more. They all begin to pray. Triumphant battle. Another death.
End of story.
The Dish
O-Dare most foul. This movie pretty much stunk. The Internet Movie
Database has this film listed under Action/Thriller/Horror. Well there
ain't no real action, ain't no real thrills and the horror is that this
movie didn't go straight to video. I've come to the conclusion that
Michael Crichton runs hot or cold. There is no in-between with him.
Either it's really good or it's really bad.
It always concerns me when a movie's release date is changed constantly
and when they don't start advertising it until a week or so before it
comes out. This generally tells me that even the studio knows that it's
going to have problems with that particular film. I had a right to be
concerned.
I'm not sure what went wrong with this movie. I think part of the
problem is that everything was almost good. The entire time I
was watching, I kept thinking about how it was just on the edge of being
a pretty cool movie. It just never quite got there. It was frustrating.
Regardless of how bad I thought it was (and compared to Universal Soldier this movie was Oscar worthy) '13th Warrior' will probably become a cult classic along the same lines as Excalibar and Conan.
I just didn't feel it.
The Directive
Antonio is cute as a button and that was it's only saving grace. That
and the cameo appearance of Omar Shariff. If I had to do it all over
again, I would have waited for it to come out on video. Other than Antonio
and Omar, the cast is made up of actors I've never heard of but might
be popular in the Netherlands. I seriously wouldn't bother going to
this movie.
Editorial Note from the news and entertainment wire on 11/19/03: Omar Quit After Embarrassing Banderas Flop
"Movie veteran Omar Sharif was so embarrassed by his role in Antonio Banderas flop The 13th Warrior he quit acting. The Lawrence Of Arabia star was so disappointed with the 1999 movie he decided never to make another film. Sharif, who has only just come out of semi-retirement to film French movie Monsieur Ibrahim, says, "After my small role in The 13th Warrior, I said to myself, 'Let us stop this nonsense, these meal tickets that we do because it pays well.' I thought, 'Unless I find a stupendous film that I love and that makes me want to leave home to do, I will stop.' Bad pictures are very humiliating, I was really sick. It is terrifying to have to do the dialogue from bad scripts, to face a director who does not know what he is doing, in a film so bad that it is not even worth exploring."
Now please stop mailing me about this movie. It makes no sense that 4 years after the damn thing came out, I'm still getting funky mail. Y'all need to get a life.
Stay home and watch the WWF. The only difference is; they don't fight with swords
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