The 13th Warrior (DVD)

John McTiernan’s adaptation of a Michael Crichton novel is a movie which you many of those reading this will not have heard of due to an incredibly poor handling of it by Disney. It was 18 months after it was made that it finally made it onto the cinema screens after Disney ummed and ahhhed about what precisely they should do with it, eventually throwing it onto the screens at the end of August - i.e. at the worst possible time. Consequently it didn't do very well, any interest in it having waned long before its release and its poor timing damning it to such a naff performance. A few months later it skulked onto video with even less ceremony and then ...

This is a true, old-school film, and as such it may not appeal to amny modern viewers. However, if you like old-fashioned adventures, and if you like your sword-slinging gritty, then this film should appeal to you. The film, based upon the Crichton novel 'Eaters of the dead' follows the adventures of Antonio Banderas, an Arab who is enlisted in a viking quest to defend an ailing Scandinavian villiage against the titular cannibals. Upon arrival, they find the villiage decimated, and the inhabitants living in mortal terror of an ancient evil which assails them. That night, they are beset by their horrific foes and barely escape with their lives. The ...

If ever you've wanted to know what a night out in Wigan, my former home, is like, then look no further than this thick slice of beefy action, directed by John McTiernan, whose action movies are generally quite elegant (think 'Hunt for Red October' or ' Thomas Crown Affair'), but who was here obviously having 'Predator' flashbacks. Yes it's all axe-fights and beer and killing - though for a film so obviously modelled on the nightlife to be found on King Street, there is a mysterious absence of pies. Anyway, there are these Vikings who have a terrible foe to face, and they enlist the help of an Egyptian adventurer (Antonio ...