Sigh...Could've been great.

Rating: Null/10 (29 August 1999)

Near the end I had near the same impression that galina-2 did. This felt kind of like a bad Seven Samurai. The 13th Warrior spent too long with the battle action scenes and not enough time with the characters between battles. In Seven Samurai you were made familiar with each of the Seven and the motivations behind both the villagers and the attackers. Here you were made familiar with maybe 3.5 of the 13 and only made familiar of the obvious motive of the villagers. I needed to get to know the rest of the 13 better to sympathize with the group and made familiar with the background to understand the story.
What saved this from being a waste of $7 were the great action sequences and the strength possessed and shown by the 13. The first stand and the sneaking around underground had boatloads of suspense.
The smigde of the impromptu love fling was weak, trite, and unnecessary. The maybe 5.5-7 minutes spent exploring the nature of unbridled on the spot passion\love in the movie would have been better spent getting more familiar with the 13.
6/10