A terribly bad movie, but kinda fun. (spoilers, I guess.)

Rating: 3/10 (8 February 2000)

I was surprised to see that most of the IMDb comments for The 13th Warrior were positive ones... and was shocked to find an average vote of 6.3 for this awful, awful movie. I mean, I went into it with fairly low expectations, but had no idea that it would turn out to be one of the worst movies of 1999. It's hard to know where to start criticizing...but I'll do my best.
Firstly, the title. Why The 13th Warrior? Antonio Banderes' character was the most useless one in the whole movie! He did absolutely nothing to contribute to the group. Speaking of characters, the only warriors who had any kind of personality or characteristics to distinguish themselves from the others were the leader guy, Omar Sharif, and the Irish guy from Braveheart. The other nine were faceless drones. How uninteresting.
The plot...where was it? What was it? I still don't understand. These 13 warriors are sent to protect the town from...who? What are those things? Bear-people? Just some savage tribe? Okay, a tribe. Sure. With you so far. They attack the warriors, killing one of them, and then leave for no apparent reason. They could have won then and there! But off they go, back to the caves. Those crazy Bear-people. Then the warriors go talk to some witch lady in the village...who is she? Who knows; but she gives them a few words of wisdom and they end up in the bear caves. (Thanks to Antonio's sage advice: "They think they're bears...where do bears live? Caves!")
Then, the Bear-people organize a wide-scale final attack against the village, which is over in one minute when the good leader (who returned from his deathbed) kills the bad leader with one swipe. The rest of the tribe (hundreds of fighters) proceed to turn around and walk back to their caves. Thanks for stopping by! Nutty Bear-people. Meanwhile, Antonio watches avidly.
I thought some scenes were fun and amusing, but I'm sure this wasn't intended. Antonio learning the Viking language in a few nights is cool, but unrealistic. I know he's a diplomat, but how does he learn "Your mother is a wh*re"? (or whatever it was). A scene I actually thought was well done was where Omar Sharif challenges the big guy, gets all beat up by him, then dodges the final blow and lops off his head in one motion. Beautiful.
Overall, a very bad movie, but fun if not taken too seriously. I liked it a lot more than the people I saw it with did, that's for sure.
Al's Rating: 3/10
Recommended for: Mindless action fans, Bear-people