13th Warrior

The 13th Warrior, a rousing adventure tale that uses the "stranger in a strange land" theme by placing a Moor courtesan amongst a pack of Viking raiders in the European Dark Ages, looks and sounds great on DVD, with a widescreen presentation and 5.1 Surround Sound that replicates the big-screen experience. It is disappointing, however, that the DVD contains few extras, just the standard trailer and language subtitles. An epic like this begs for some deleted scenes and production notes, while a commentary by director John McTiernan on a reportedly rocky production that took years to finish would have been a welcome addition. A sleeper, The 13th Warrior provides lots of swashbuckling adventure that is scarce in today's action genre.