Reasonable, but considering this is a Crichton/McTiernan collaboration I expected a lot more

Rating: 5/10 (21 November 2017)

Ahmed Ibn Fahdian (Antonio Banderas)is extradited to the north by the Sultan after he falls in love with his daughter. On this journey, he stops at a Viking village and learns that a nearby kingdom is being terrorised (after the son of the King visits the village and asks their leader Bullwyf - Vladimir Kulich for help). Bullwyf and his associates agree to help the little boy and Fahdian is randomly selected as the 13th warrior and helps both Bullwyf and the boy's family to defend their kingdom...
I've actually just re-read my summary for the film and deduced that it doesn't make much sense, but to my recollection that is exactly how the story is established so I can only apologise and reiterate things exactly how I saw them...
Part of the problem with this film lies with its vague narrative; Fahdian is conscripted as the 13th warrior because the 13th warrior must not be from a Norse or Northern background. Oh how convenient? Of all the villages, in all the tents in all the world you just happened to walk in to mine... Quite why the 13th warrior cannot be a Norse warrior is anyone's guess - maybe it's explained in Crichton's novel, but hell it's certainly never explained in the film. I also found it strange that Fahdian seemed to be able to understand the Norse people's language and his explanation for understanding them is because he 'listened' - what that's it?? I've listened to people speak in other languages, but I'm still struggling with English so this makes no logical sense.
OK, so the script has some ropy elements to it, but I was encouraged when I saw McTiernan's name on the open credits and felt sure that I would bear witness to some top quality direction... Nope the directing that I witnessed was actually very average; there were nowhere near enough action sequences, an unnecessary and unbearably long and dull set-up. The film is also way too serious and the fantasy/sorcery element was overdone and not particularly interesting.
To be fair, the 13th Warrior isn't a total waste of time; there are a few decent action sequences (where McTiernan seems to have remembered some of what he was capable of with Predator and Die Hard) and the story is serviceable and moves along at an OK rate - at times it does have an old-fashioned adventure feel which always ensures that it's watchable.
However, like I've said considering that this is the brainchild of talented people like Michael Crichton and John McTiernan it's hard not to feel a bit disappointed in this rather wishy-washy action adventure film - particularly knowing how great their films have been individually prior to this rather average collaboration.