The 13th Warrior

This movie has the most pitifully created characters I've seen in a long while. I knew each and every character would die, and when they did I didn't care.I didn't care how they died. Each death only became an extra bodies in the middle of a battle scene.

The "story" is that a king and his land are threatened by some ancient prophecy and they need help. They need thirteen warriors to save them. Something must have been magical about thirteen. No, it couldn't have been fourteen, or even twelve. Thirteen. As could be predicted by a three year old, Antonio Banderas is the thirteenth one chosen. The mascara-wearing Banderas, who was so charming in the Mask of Zorro, drops the ball with his performance, seemingly hiding all traces of emotions. However, he's not entirely to blame. He wasn't given much to work with.

The centerpieces of this movie are it's battle scenes. After the intense first one, which takes place in very close quarters, they became less and less involving. The final one, which seemed to be filmed entirely in slow motion, is just plain silly. The scenes featured rapid fire editing with close in shots. I would have liked to see a shot from above, or one that rolled over the hills and saw the carnage from a distance. I didn't like seeing everything from three inches away. I'm sure the director intended such shots to add to the claustophobia of the scene, and what happens when you're thrown into the midst of a fiery battle. He didn't get the desired result as I basically rolled my eyes in exasperation.

Lazy, annoying, and just plain boring, The 13th Warrior is lousy. It's the type of film where I felt like screaming at the manager to give me my money back. Unfortunately there was no hope of recovering my hard-earned bills, so I didn't bother.

On a scale of 1 to 10 dismembered bodies: 2