Well directed period piece has an authentic medieval look and feel

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2000)

I have read a lot of criticisms of this film here and elsewhere that I don't feel are justified. I liked this film. It is an excellent piece of directing from John McTiernan that captures the medieval period realistically.
Contrary to most of the criticism that this film is just violence with no plot, this film has a very definite and sound plot. It is the story of 13 courageous men who are sent to defend the homeland of a respected king from the attack of the Wendol, the creatures of the mist who are thought to be eaters of human flesh. It is a story of duty, courage, honor and loyalty, and some very brutal battles.
What the story lacked was character development and an archetypal hero. Since that is what the masses expect in their films, I'm certain this film was a big disappointment. That is what made Braveheart a more complete film of this genre. We had William Wallace as our reason for watching the battles. If this film starred Gibson or Arnold Schwarzenegger as Buliwyf (played instead by veritably unknown Vladimir Kulich), and spent a little time developing him as a leader, I'm sure everyone would have thought it was a great movie.
They only real flaw in the plot was premise that an Arab that they just met, especially one who was not a warrior by profession, would be selected as the 13th warrior. This was highly contrived.
This film was an epic saga of human conflict. It wasn't some romantic war over a great philosophy or ideal. It was raw survival against barbaric intruders. It was typical of life in medieval times. This is not something today's society can really relate to being a generation that has grown up on sitcoms and fast food and whose idea of a threat is if someone insults their cultural group. I believe that this is the reason it did not have popular appeal. The response would probably be the same if The Iliad were made into a film without some character development of Achilles and Hector.

McTiernan did an outstanding job of capturing the look and feel of the times. The locations were fantastic and the sets all very rough hewn. The cave scenes were also extremely realistic. The battle scenes were first rate. He did a fine job of depicting the thinking of medieval men, wrought from a combination of tradition, myth, superstition, and fear of the unknown in a time when almost everything was unknown.
The only real error he made was the depiction of Ahmad's (Antonio Banderas) learning of the Northmen's language. Clearly, he was not trying to make it look like Ahmad learned the language in one night. Unfortunately, that's the way it came across. It would have been more effective if he used successive cutaways of him listening in different situations, on the boat, in a field, by the campfire, etc.
Of special note, I saw this film on DVD and the sound was fantastic. This was superb use of all five speakers in the Dolby 5.1 format. The forest and battle sounds came from everywhere at once. Characters who rode off the screen, could be tracked audibly as they rode away. Kudos to the sound designers.
Antonio Banderas did as good a job as can be expected given the way his character was written. Since the hero wasn't the point of this film (the struggle was), and since he wasn't really even the hero (Buliwyf was), Banderas was relegated to being a supporting actor in a starring role.
I rated this film an 8/10. A few minor flaws did not detract from the excellence of the portrayal of the epic. Not for the faint of heart.