Reviewed by Greg Dixon
THE 13TH WARRIOR
**
Cast: Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Dennis Storhoi, Vladimir Kulich, Omar Sharif
Director: John McTiernan
Rating: R16
Opens: Now showing, Hoyts and Village Cinemas
Coming out of the mists of time — it was completed nearly two years before its release — this sword-and-sorcery yarn did seem to have
plenty going for it.
First, it's based on a novel Eaters of The Dead from big bang author Michael Crichton, who's work has translated into, if not great cinema, then some of the most popular films of the 90s like Jurassic Park.
Add to that a budget of a $100 million and tried-and-true director McTiernan (Die Hard), and you'd have to say that — on paper — it looked a promising sort of bet.
Well that's all she wrote. What has finally been delivered is The Seven Samurai without the intelligence and Conan the Barbarian without the campness. It's a not quite stinker.
The plot, such as it is, is this: Banderas is a Babylonian poet and fusspot who, we learn through clumsy opening flashbacks, has been press-ganged into a quest by 12 Vikings to rid their homeland of mysterious creatures said to eat human flesh.
What tension the film has derives from this sense of the unknown, from these inhuman terrors whose name must not be uttered.
But Crichton's story is static, has absolutely no internal logic and the entire mess simply descends into a series of prolonged, bloody, swashbuckling fight scenes.
Between the battles, there's a lot of gruff acting going on from our 12 Norse warriors and their "Arab" worrier, but none of it is very good. The actors just seem to be passing the time between suiting up for another good old-fashioned stoush — a few of which were apparently going on off screen.
McTiernan apparently quit the production because of the intercession of the influential Crichton (who reshot scenes after poor test-audience feedback).
It's not hard to see why McTiernan backed off.
Certainly, you know there's trouble when somebody has to say "come with me there is a woman who can help you."
As always, it's a mad crone who seems to know what's going on. Indeed she seems to have more smarts than the rest of the cast combined.
If only she'd sent the whole bleedin' (and there's lots of bleedin') thing back into the mist.
