Long + Boring + Silly Writing < Good Action Film

Rating: 4/10 (19 April 2001)

It never ceases to amaze me that a studio can spend $100 mil on a movie, and seemingly forget to pay somebody to write a decent screenplay. In this case, the writers seem to have spent their time trying to figure out how to write around some awkward constructs that didn't make much sense in the first place. For example, when the director tires of hearing all this foreign language stuff, he needs the main character to start speaking their language. Solution: the main character learns this foreign language, apparently perfectly, in one night, by `listening'. Say what you will about the `universal translator' in Star Trek, at least it avoids this kind of stupidity.
Unfortunately, holes abound throughout the story. At several points, effort is made to show the viewer that the mythical aspects of the enemy are just that, mythical, and we get to see the trick, i.e. the scary bear teeth is just a mask, the glow worm is actually cavalry with torches, and so on. But all of this is undone at a stroke when all of the dead bad guys disappear like a wisp of smoke.
I like both epic stories based on historical facts and fantasies based on myth, but please, it shouldn't be that hard to keep some semblance of consistency.