Why is the Arab there?

Rating: Null/10 (28 August 2000)

Is there anybody who's seen this movie who hasn't wondered why Antonio Banderas' Ahmed character is included? In Michael Crichton's novel Ahmed is the narrator, and the entire first half of the story involves the educated Arab's reactions to the ways of the dirty, loud, warlike Vikings. Now I'm not saying that the "fish out of water" plot is original--but at least it gave the narrator a reason to be in the story. How can the relationship between Ahmed and the Vikings be explored if we have no idea who he is? For some reason the filmmakers decided to skip over any details of Ahmed's background or character, only sketching them in the bare bones during the credits. So what we get is just a fairly decent, and fairly dumb, B-movie Viking adventure story with an Arab in it for some reason. I mean, for all that money, why bother? Still, it is a better Viking movie than Lee Majors' 1978 b-flick "The Norseman". Barely.