Take historical manuscript, mix with famous myth, stir

Rating: 10/10 (29 August 1999)

Awesome! Totally awesome! One of the most exhilarating movies I've ever seen! Far better than any of the so-called blockbusters that crashed down upon us earlier this summer. This was one cool film, and from one of my favorite books (usually when a book I love gets filmed, I want to puke).

Crichton takes the manuscript of Ibn Fadhlan (one of the most important documents in history, an eyewitness account of Vikings by an Arab diplomat who was kidnapped by them while on a mission to the Bulgars--from which anthropologists got the eyewitness account of a Viking funeral) and combines it with the story of Beowulf, changed a bit to make the monsters into men. Parts of the book has been changed to make them more visual for the film, but the result is an amazing array of images masterfully woven into a rich tapestry of 10th Century heroism. Okay, the armor sucks--there's no reason to put Buliwyf/Beowulf into gothic plate other then to give the film a Boris Valejo flare. Other then that, however, it is truly stunning. There is a sense here both of the barbarism of the Vikings as Ibn Fadhlan first encounters them, and the heroism and spirit he finds as he gets to know them and, eventually, becomes one of them. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!