Review of The 13th Warrior (1999) by Acell O — 03 Apr 2013

Great damn movie. Maybe my favorite. An unfortunate Arab ambassador is coerced to accompany a band of Vikings to aid a small community against attacks from a somehow surviving clan of Neanderthals. Hell yeah. What's not to like?

I see a lot of reviews trashing the film for a lack of comprehensible story elements, slandering it as a dumb action flick the sole purpose of which is to provide the audience with neat looking period props and gratuitous violence. While it provides both of those things in abundance, the story here is the thing that draws me back to it again and again.

For those that aren't aware, the source material, Micheal Crighton's "Eaters of the Dead", is his adaptation of the ancient song of Beowulf. In this case Ibn takes the role of story teller, giving the audience a narrative vantage point to watch and relate to as the tale of the real protagonist, Buliwyf, who is this telling's Beowulf plays out. The Wendol, a clan of Neanderthals who somehow survived the millenniums, worked their way into Scandinavia, and set up shop in a cavern from which they launch raids on the nearby settlement, take the part of the monster Grendal, coming in the night and taking people as they please.

So, Beowulf fights Grendal. The story is brilliant in that the movie's version of events could easily have been misconstrued and exaggerated via word-of-mouth over decades to become the original tale of Beowulf. Grendal's arm being ripped off is one of the Wendol in the initial night battle's hands getting chopped off. Beowulf slaying Grendal's mother underwater is Buliwyf slaying the clan mother in their lair, a cave behind a waterfall. The Dragon is a huge line of torch-wielding Wendol coming down the mountain to attack.

To make the film what it is, of course, this retelling of Beowulf plays out in a hella-badass fashion. The battles are chaotic but not so much that you can't tell what's happening. The Wendol are terrifying, numerous, and as savagely strong as you'd expect Neanderthals to be. Couple that with black warpaint, bear-skin headdresses and bear-claw-ended clubs, and you have a worthy adversary for the hardass viking protagonists who think that an epic death is the most hilarious thing in the world. Chainmail, roundshields, wide, gnarly broadswords, it's all there.

The score is great as well, seemingly perfect for the events taking place onscreen. The eerie tones that signal the mist and subsequently the Wendol are smoothly transitioned to the hearty battle-theme of club-on-sword for the final scenes.

Also, if Buliwyf dragging himself out of his deathbed to fight the war chief of the Wendol isn't badass enough to make you feel like jumping out of your seat and hitting things, you're emotionally dead.

I don't know what the critics wanted. It's a legend, and it's a very straight forward sequence of events. I don't see what could possibly be hard to follow, or where the story was lacking. I love an emotionally complex tale as much as the next viewer, but this is a story about what happens, not about how everyone feels about each other. It's the story of tremendous men doing a great thing. Of Beowulf slaying Grendal and not much else, and for that, I love it.