A flawed, but underrated film in my opinion

Rating: 7/10 (23 September 2012)

I never read the book yet, but I'm planning to someday if I have the chance. However, I wasn't too sure whether or not I should like this movie adaptation of Michael Crichton's novel, so I decided to watch the whole thing online feeling a little underwhelmed at first, but as the film progresses, I said to myself, "You know what? This might turn out pretty decent." and it did. Apparently, this movie has some problems that ruined it, but I don't think this movie is as bad as the critics said it was.
Let me start off with the redeeming aspects. The scenery is magnificent, the costumes and make-ups are brilliant, and cinematography is solid it gives a great atmosphere to the entire film. The direction is above-decent, the pacing never fails to be too fast nor too slow and the music from Jerry Goldsmith is great with some dark moments that suited the gripping action sequences really well, but the strongest aspect goes to it's fine acting. Antonio Banderas is great as the lead role, Vladimir Kulich is also good, and Diane Venora is beyond excellent. Like I said before, there are some flaws and those are it's predictable story, messy script, and mediocre dialog.
Overall, The 13th Warrior isn't a kind of masterpiece that I would recommend to fans of the book, but in my opinion, I would say that this is quite underrated and a decent one too. Thumbs up!