The 13th Warrior (1999)

**_Good Viking Adventure -- Could've Been Great_**

The story of "The 13th Warrior" (1999) comes from Michael Crichton's novel "The Eaters of the Dead" which combines the legend of Beowulf with a historical account of an Arab diplomat who meets and dwells with the Vikings after being banished from his homeland due to an adulterous liaison.

Antonio Banderas stars as the Arab while the hulking Vladimir Kulich heads the Viking cast in the Beowulf role of Buliwyf (pronounced in the film BULL-vie). Speaking of Kulich, he would've made for an excellent Mighty Thor back in the day!

The plot of the film is great: Once Banderas meets up with the Vikings, they run afoul of a mysterious brutal tribe from the deep woods. Banderas is selected as the lone non-Viking to assist the 12 Norsemen in ...

**Overall: Ignore the reviews. The 13th Warrior is the best Viking epic of all time!**

The greatest historical Viking battle epic you never heard of. Just like Jurassic Park and Westworld, The 13th Warrior is based on a Michael Crichton book and boasts an incredible action director, John McTiernan (Die Hard, Predator), Antonio Banderas as the leading man at the top of his career, excellent practical effects and beautiful sets and costumes. Yet, critics obliterated the film, and it failed at the box office, becoming one of the biggest box office flops of all time. I have no idea how this happened or why the reviews are so bad because this is an EXCELLENT movie. The battle scenes in The 13th Warrior are in league with other action epics like Braveheart, The Last Samurai, or Kingdom of Hea...

This is my kind of film, and so despite that rather dodgy casting of Antonio Banderas - indeed, the pretty ropey casting throughout - I still rather enjoyed it. Banderas is a gentle poet whose eye wanders at the court of the Caliph. That earns him a new job as ambassador to the Northmen and so off he rides, with his sagely friend "Melchisadek" (a few scenes from Omar Sharif). His arrival at their camp is greeted with indifference until a messenger arrives regaling them with horror stories of a terror back home. Their soothsayer advises that thirteen men must return home to combat this evil - but the last of this warlike baker's dozen must not be of their race. Oops - wrong place, wrong time for Antonio and off he sets into an enjoyably paced series of set-piece action scenarios with a Nors...