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In yet another example of what a strange place Hollywood is, The 13th Warrior, which started shooting over two years ago and went through two directors, a couple composers, various casting rumors and title changes, and as many as four supposedly final edits on its way to a half-dozen announced release dates before getting stuck in the can for yet another year, is the most watchable display of medieval carnage and camaraderie since Braveheart. Antonio Banderas stars as Ahmed ibn Fadlan, a prominent 10th century Baghdad poet whose pursuit of the wrong guy’s woman earns him ambassadorial exile to chilly eastern Europe. There he falls in with a boatload of big-armed Norsemen who take up the quest to save a distant village from near-mythic, nearly invisible marauders so vicious it’s bad luck to speak their name. But these Vikings are a Calvinistic lot, not given to fearing death since destiny has already written their last act, and while travelling to battle have a good time chiding Ahmed for his small but quick horse and his lack of prowess with the two-handed broadsword. When push comes to hack, though, he proves both his mettle and bravery in a strange latitude, thereby garnering glorious tales for future verse.
Based on (and originally titled) Eaters of the Dead, a novel written by Michael Crichton before he joined Clancy, King, and Grisham in the Household-Word Beach-Read Author of the Month Club, The 13th Warrior utilizes a minimalist script, a cast most of whose members are unknown in America, and suitably frigid Canadian mountainsides to construct, in the words of one of its Swedish actors, a worthwhile “grabbfilm” -- guys’ movie. The Seven Samurai with fur. It’s even got a lot of neat little details, such as unexpected bits of historical arcanae (including the identity of the cannibalistic Wendol -- uh-oh, now I’ve done it...), and a way of dealing with the language barrier that’s better than simply sticking a “universal translator” in everybody’s ear a la “Star Trek.”
Despite Crichton himself returning to reshoot scenes after the departure of John McTiernan (whose The Thomas Crown Affair remake was released earlier but filmed later), suffers nowhere from abruptness or discontinuity of vision. But given the way the Disney’s Touchstone Pictures shuffled it around, if interested you’d better catch it before it goes to video. B
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