John McTiernan's worst effort ever!

Rating: 4/10 (20 January 2000)

Director John McTiernan is one of my all time favorite directors. After watching Thomas Crown Affair, one of the most beautiful movies ever made, my hopes and expectations were raised even higher. This is the guy who gave us 'Die Hard', 'Predator', and 'Hunt for Red October'. If that was not enough, Antonio Banderas, who gave a tremendously entertaining performance in 'Mask of Zorro' further convinced me that it can't be bad.
I was wrong in my calculations. John McTiernan was inspired by some of his own previous work and sort of tried to combine 'Die Hard' (in the sense these 13 guys are sort of locked up in a village) and 'Predator'(in the sense that their are man hunters, and people who collect skulls as a tribute to some diety). However, there are so many illogical inconsistencies that whatever one or two semi-decent action sequences this movie has, can not make up for rest of the shortcomings.
When the man-hunters attack for the second time at night, could someone explain to me why they just turned back and left? Were they on some kind of synchronized clock? The point at which they decided to quit was the time when they were about to complete victory.
Second, It didn't really was made clear that they were actually man-eaters, or just using skulls for some pagan ritual.
In addition, the hero of the movie, the 13th warrior really does not contribute anything additional to the mission. Also what's the deal with just 13. When the other side apparently has thousands, then shouldn't everybody be putting an effort to not get eaten or avoid having their skull used for decoration purposes?
In beginning of the movie Director makes the point, the man-hunters are smart, as they not only camouflage well, but hide their tracks well. Then the director shows them as complete idiots, when it comes to launching an attack (which should not be the case for those who make their living hunting and killing). There are thousands of them, and why do they decide to cross into the village at the only spot where the remaining 5 or 6 guys were defending? Even animals, predators like wolves and rest of them have enough intelligence to surround, and plan their hunt etc. On one hand they are shown so smart that they never suffered a casualty for hundreds of years that could have revealed whether they were animals or men, and on the other hand they just run themselves into blades for no apparent reason.

In the end of the movie, the victory comes in the form of killing of the evil female leader, and the strong male warrior leader. Once again its illogical to show that only those two guys were the source of inspiration for killing. After-all the plot indicates that they have been hunting for hundreds of years. That means there has been some continuity and power is inherited among them. Even in animal kingdom that happens everyday. However, according John McTiernan, those logical events do not apply here.

The biggest robbery in the movie is that in the commercial it was shown he fights for love and the beautiful Arab woman in veil is shown. In reality, there is no romance or love, which makes the whole thing even more dry. You don't get the true feeling of adventure either as the final mission turns out to be easy. They track, go in, kill the leader, and get out.

A bad movie. I hope John McTiernan just turns the page over, and helps us forget about this effort.