Avid Merrion Stars In A Crap Film

Rating: 3/10 (26 July 2004)

I saw THE 13TH WARRIOR immediately after seeing the surreal and funny comedy show BO SELECTA and I couldn't help noticing that Antonio Banderas voice resembles Avid Merrion . I couldn't help laughing every time Banderas's character Ahmed Fadlan opened his mouth to add narration to the story , when he said " We traveled to the lands of the north " I kept expecting him to say " So I could meet some really sexy blonde ladies , ah really really lurve Abi Titmuss "
Seeing as this brought amusement to the proceedings I'm glad I was reminded of Avid Merrion because that's the only entertainment to be had by the first hour of this movie whose narrative is entirely taken up by Ahmed traveling with a group of viking warriors to the lands of the north which is even less exciting than it sounds . The lack of involvement for the audience isn't helped by a ridiculous revelation that Ahmed can understand the viking's language after all and up until this point we have to watch large sections of the movie where no English is spoken . Wouldn't it have been far better to have the characters understand each others language right from the start of the film no matter who illogical this would have been ?
So after an hour where nothing of any interest happens the film settles down to its main plot of having the Avid Merrion soundalike and his multi-lingual mates protecting the Nordic people from an army of cannibalistic redneck scumbags . Again I don't want to give the impression that this sounds exciting in anyway because it's not . Director John McTiernan at the time was well regarded because of his work on DIE HARD , THE HUNT FOR RED October and PREDATOR and is probably now best remembered for the debacle that is the ROLLERBALL remake you get an idea how variable his can be . The battle scenes in THE 13TH WARRIOR are probably the worst action scenes of McTiernan's career , they're badly edited and so darkly lit that it's almost impossible to see what's taking place on screen . Compared to Ridley Scott's work on GLADIATOR and most especially Peter Jackson's THE TWO TOWERS the battle scenes here are very poor indeed and I'm at a loss to understand the relatively high rating by IMDb voters . I give THE 13TH WARRIOR three out of ten