Hidden Gems

I first saw this film on late night TV, liked it, then forgot about it for a few years.  I watched it again, on late night TV once more, and loved it.  It got average reviews, the studio editors apparently cut a large part of the movie, and it stars mostly unknown actors (apart from Banderas who puts in his best performance in any film), but I think it is a most underrated movie.  I could, and have, watched this film over and over.  It be good.  What you think? 
 
      
 
If the movie interests you, puhleeezz don't watch a trailer for it because every trailer I've seen is terrible.  Reeeally terrible.  Great movie though.

I think I enjoyed the film the first time I saw it. Unfortuantely, it went from something that was all right to something that I never want to see again. I had to watch it for a college class I took about a year and a half ago. I ended up watching it three times in one week and writing a 10 page paper comparing the film and the novel. Now, every time I think of this movie I think about the paper and all of the terrible Beowulf films I had to watch that semester. There are a lot of bad Beowulf movies out there.
 
If you haven't already, I would suggest you check out the novel. It's called Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton. It's quite different from the film, but it's still pretty interesting. It's particularly interesting to read about why Michael Crichton wrote the novel.

It's a mess of a movie, but still compulsively watchable. It's one of those movies I can put on at any time and watch it through.
 
The version we see is quite different from the original cut John McTiernan wanted. Michael Chricton fired him, re-shot and re-edited the film and that's what we were left with.
 
There's some pretty good trivia on the film's page, some of it provided by yours truly. 
http://www.screened.com/the-13th-warrior/16-182869/

The 13th Warrior is a highly entertaining movie, but yes, it's a total mess.
 
The idea that Michael Crichton thought he was a filmmaker is still really funny to me. He wasn't even that good at writing books.

@Olivaw said:

" The 13th Warrior is a highly entertaining movie, but yes, it's a total mess.
 
The idea that Michael Crichton thought he was a filmmaker is still really funny to me. He wasn't even that good at writing books. "

I don't know about that. He had a hell of a run there for a while of best selling novels that got turned into movies.
 
Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man, Great Train Robbery, Eaters of the Dead, Congo, Sphere, Jurassic Park, Rising Sun, Disclosure, Lost World. 
 
I love 13th Warrior. It certainly has it's problems, but there aren't very many cool viking movies and this is definitely a cool viking movie. 

@JokerSmilez:
Definitely agree with you there.  The story may be a bit of a mess but all of the performances are spot on and the movie oozes atmosphere.

This is a fun flick and probably the best Beowulf movie out there if you don't like the Zemeckis version.

I love this movie! For me all the awesome and funny scenes counter the bad ones. 
 
I read that Crichton wrote the Eaters of The Dead because he made a bet with someone that he could write an interesting version of Beowulf...