Review of The 13th Warrior (1999) by Stefan G — 11 Jul 2015

You'd think that with a budget in excess of $100 million, the producers would be able to make this film as good as it could have been. However, the momentum died very quickly, and as one expensive set-piece passes after another, it gets all the harder to actually care about it.

The story is very simplistic, but thin and hollow in terms of actual storytelling. The characters are difficult, if not impossible to empathize with, mainly because many of them are typical macho men (for medieval standards at least) with little personality to show.

Antonio Banderas makes for a decent lead character, but he still doesn't do a whole lot to make this film any more watchable. The visuals are decent and quite realistic, but there's not a lot of colour, which only adds to the banality of the film as a whole.

The fighting scenes aren't much either. In fact, they seem just as flimsy as the acting itself. This film could have been a solid offering, but instead we're treated to an overly expensive and badly written adventure flick that fails to reach the heights the producers had hoped for it to reach.