Seven Samurai homage?

Rating: 7/10 (30 March 2020)

Think this is a good movie and little more even, really really decent movie, but very far from a masterpiece or anything like that. And it's also not a big movie with epic sword battles, but function more on a small scale. Almost with bits of fantasy and even horror elements to it. The story is not spectacular imaginative though, and it's not trying very hard to be historically correct. What sells this movie for me is the 12 heroic Viking warriors that are viewed from the eyes of the Arab (Antonio Banderas). Have to mention I thought also this was fun, for Banderas to do a movie like this, that is a bit on the small scale budget wise and with no famous Hollywood actors or even known actors (if you don't recognize Scandinavian actors) and with Vikings as a theme, you wouldn't expect him doing a role like that. Also, one of my all time favorites are Seven Samurai, and I'm sure the script was inspired by Seven Samurai (but I wouldn't know off course), but that is either way usually not a bad thing, just look at the Magnificent Seven for example (I mean the old classic western more then the new one) . Like the 7 Samurai in Seven Samurai the 12 Vikings are fearless, dignified, humorous and with strong sense of brotherhood, loyalty and experience of combat. They create a great dynamic to the movie. The rest of the movie is entertaining, exciting and not too long. To me that's good entertainment. But if you don't like sword fights or Vikings or this time period, perhaps not a movie for you. I like it though. I would recommend.
Edit: just checked some more information about this movie. It was diffidently not on the small scale budget wise, it was actually quite expensive, those sets and costumes off course, have to be. Also didn't know that John McTeirnan is the director of Die Hard. I thought this move almost had an indie feel for some reason. I was really really off. Still decent good movie though...