Loosely based on “Beowulf” (and directly adapted from the
Michael Crichton book Eaters of the Dead)
this film is about an Arabian, who we’ll call Little Brother because that’s
what he’s referred to most often (Antonio Banderas (Original Sin, Assassins)), who gets banished from his homeland and
travels across the Middle East and Europe.
He comes across some Vikings and hangs with them for a bit. But they get an emergency call from a small
village that’s under attack by monsters.
A team of thirteen warriors needs to be assembled and Little Brother is
chosen to go. He doesn’t volunteer mind
you. He gets handpicked because the
thirteenth warrior needs to be a foreigner.
So our heroes set off to figure out what the fuck is going on and kill
the threat.
That set up may have sounded kinda funky but it’s only the
first couple of minutes of the film. The
main story is extremely simplistic: something is attacking this village, find
out what and destroy it.
The reason we need to have a character like Little Brother is
because he’s supposed to be the audience.
He’s the guy that’s completely unfamiliar with this Viking world and so
shit needs to be explained to him. It’s a
standard way to dole out info to the viewers and also one of the best because it
comes across as natural.
Every one of the Vikings is a man’s man. They have beards, long hair, aren’t afraid of
anything, don’t think twice about killing, keep cool under fire, they’re muscular,
stoic as shit and are just all around badass motherfuckers. Little Brother is weaker, smaller, inexperienced
in battle, unacquainted with Viking lore, unaccustomed to the thick forests and
caves of Scandinavia and feels out of place most of the time. But don’t get the wrong impression. Little Brother doesn’t argue when he’s told
he must embark on this journey with the Vikings. He accepts his situation without as much as a
peep. Sure he may not be as manly as the
others but he puts his best foot forward and does whatever he can to help out. He knows he’s not on the same level as these
macho sonsabitches but he tries to not let it discourage him. Even with the occasional joke that gets made
at his expense Little Brother remains committed to helping these guys out
because they’re all in the same boat (literally and figuratively). They’re united to stop this unknown force. The camaraderie is beautiful to see.
And the actual mystery itself is really cool. You hear tales at first of these things
eating the dead and then you see some of the carnage that they leave behind
when our crew checks out a house in the woods filled with mutilated bodies. The creatures are kept in either long or very
shadowy shots for about the first half so we can’t make them out too well. They look like bear/human hybrids. And the supernatural aspect seems to be true when
the Vikings are sure they’ve killed a bunch in a fight but when they go to
examine the bodies they’ve disappeared. Spoiler, skip to the next paragraph where
it’s safe. But when we do finally
see that these things are really just humans dressed up to intimidate it’s more
shocking than if they really were an ancient breed of monsters. I don’t know about you but to have the enemy
be a tribe of barbaric humans grounds the movie and makes the whole experience
feel more serious. If the filmmakers had
used mutated human/bear creatures I wouldn’t have been against it but having
them just be crazy humans is maybe scarier.
I think it’s because it shows how cruel we can be towards each other and
also that things haven’t really changed over the years. We still threaten and attack each other every
day around the world.
The production design and cinematography are goddamn
incredible. The world we’re shown feels
rich and lived in. The small village that
needs protection with its great hall is especially amazing. Everything looks larger than life and is
kinda grimy. The whole film has a sort
of slightly exaggerated and dark look to it that’s absolutely beautiful. It looks very similar to how most pictures
are done today with muted colors and just the right amount of grit. But I think this one looks even better than today
because back in the 90’s they weren’t afraid to throw in some color and
textures that weren’t so glossy and shiny.
The lighting is also very well done. Like the rest of the movie they tried to keep
it organic and didn’t clear up the overcast days or over light the scenes where
fire is the source.
One of the best parts is the night battle. The bad guys wield torches and hurl them at
the village to try and burn it down. Of
course they also invade on horseback and everyone joins in on the fight. It’s a little hard to make out what’s
happening sometimes because the lighting is minimal and there are a lot of
shadows. But it all looks and feels phenomenal. It’s supposed to be chaotic which definitely
comes across but it’s not so messy that you can’t follow shit. I particularly like the shot of the enemies
riding with their torches through the narrow avenues of the village. I love that you can’t see the faces so it
looks like a bear riding a horse.
John McTiernan of Die
Hard and Predator fame directed this. But apparently the final product he delivered
was so bad that Michael Crichton had to go back and do some reshoots as well as
re-edit the thing. It’s so weird because
this film doesn’t feel that way at all. The
whole thing really comes together and works well. There are only two things that don’t quite
add up. The first is that they set up
this power struggle between the king of the village and some other dude but it
doesn’t go anywhere. It’s brought up
maybe twice and then it’s forgotten about.
Although, this throwaway part of the plot does lead to a pretty cool
moment that demonstrates how awesome one of the Vikings is. The other is that the last fight sequence is
rather short and it feels like either they didn’t shoot enough footage forcing
them to make it a relatively brief scene or this was part of Crichton’s
reshooting which he wouldn’t have had a large budget for causing this battle to
be smaller and shorter. The way they did
it isn’t terrible but it’s a shame because you want this to end with a big
fight. You could also say that Little
Brother learning the language of the Vikings in just a couple of weeks or
months is bullshit but that didn’t bother me very much (for some reason this
same language thing irritated me a lot in The
Last Samurai though). Other than
those couple of items this is a lean mean badass sonuvabitch of a movie.
Well, ok, The 13th
Warrior is a lame title. They should’ve
stuck with the original (and book) title: Eaters
of the Dead. Not only is it way
cooler sounding but it also makes more sense.
The focus of the picture isn’t the thirteenth warrior, Little
Brother. He’s the main character but the
story isn’t about him, it’s about a situation at this village. It’s like if Star Wars was called Jedi
or Luke Skywalker. Sure Luke plays a major role but the story is
bigger than him. The movie encompasses
more than this one character.
But overall I really liked this one a lot. It’s a very refreshing film that gets so much
out of a stripped down story. The idea
of danger and creatures lurking in the woods is classic. The investigation and build up is executed
pretty perfectly with a ton of suspense, intrigue and menace.
This is a forgotten gem.
It’s such an adventure-y adventure picture. Plus a lot of people get killed. According to moviebodycounts.com the final
tally rises to 61. Shit man.
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