silly adventure melodrama

Rating: Null/10 (24 January 2000)

Credit the makers of "The 13th Warrior" with at least trying to revive that moribund genre of the late 1950's and 1960's - the truly wretched, utterly inane warring-barbarian epic, wherein hordes of badly dressed huns, tartars and Vikings smash away at each other with swords and scimitars to no discernible point or purpose. That such a film is even attempted in this day and age speaks volumes about either the box-office bravery (should the folly succeed) or financial foolishness (should it fail - which it did) of the movie's corporate backers.
Antonio Banderas, who will assuredly not count this as one of the finest hours of his already mediocre film career, stars as a foppish, weak-spined Arabian diplomat who is exiled from Baghdad for an inappropriate dalliance and finds himself an unwitting and reluctant member (the 13th warrior) of a band of Norsemen who have been sent out on a rescue mission to help defend a northern village from attacks by a mysterious malevolent force that comes charging out of the forest on misty nights. In typical '90's fashion, the filmmakers are not content to play straight with the subject matter but must imply all sorts of supernatural elements, presumably to keep skeptical and more sci-fi oriented modern audiences from hooting the material off the screen. All those scoffers who deprecated "The Blair Witch Project" for not providing enough of a glimpse of the horrors implied therein get their comeuppance in this film since the mysterious terror in the woods here turns out to be literally a bunch of guys dressed in snicker-inducing bear suits. The screenplay is a confused mess, replete with important characters that are dropped without any explanation and actions that seem, at times, entirely lacking in motivation.
About the only new ground this tedious action film manages to break can be found in Banderas' main character who emerges as rather a cowardly ninny at the beginning, but who, alas in more typical fashion, ends up rallying with the other boys to help save the day. Still, credit the film with trying to smash the mold of pure blue heroic protagonist at least part of the way. And, perhaps, far from incidentally, the film affords an opportunity for an aging Omar Sharif to hoist himself back onto a camel and roam the desert as he rediscovers his "Lawrence of Arabia" roots after all these years. Is is a sadly nostalgic sight.
All of which only goes to show that even the most minor diversion shines forth in a major way in a film otherwise utterly devoid of all interest as "The 13th Warrior."