13th Warrior, The

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Summary

This film is not well reviewed, but I loved it. I cut my teeth on films like Jason and the Argonauts and Conan the Barbian. I learned Old Norse just to read their tales in the original. I dream of misty sparsely populated Norwegian countrysides. Which is all to say that this film plays right to my biases.

Having said that, I still think it's a good film in its own right. The setting is lush and beautiful, the acting is solid, and the screen writing is perfectly good. It's a strong action movie.

Details and Notes

The lackluster ratings seem to center around the idea that it's simply mediocre. Yet the nice thing about the modern age is that we have the resources and the cost of production is low enough that we can develop hundreds of mediocre movies. Which, if they are strong enough all have a chance to resonate with someone.

If nothing else, this movie has the absolute best treatment of learning a foreign language I've ever seen. They start the movie with the Vikings speaking Old Norse, which resolves to Arabic heard as English as the main character learns their language. All very correct and meta.