YMMV / The 13th Warrior

• Adaptation Displacement: Averted. The studio heavily promoted the involvement of "Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park" in this film. If Crichton was involved, there had to be a book... and the book had to be better, so most people who enjoyed the film likely read the book right after.
• Awesome Music: Even if you didn't care for the movie, you have to admit that Jerry Goldsmith's score is pretty awesome. So much so that Ridley Scott used the cue "Valhalla/Viking Victory" for his film Kingdom of Heaven. Slightly controversial, given the director and the composer's turbulent relationship when they worked together on Alien & Legend (1985) that saw Scott cutting off a large part of Goldsmith's music on the former and re-using parts of Goldsmith's earlier score from Freud; while simultaneously throwing out Goldsmith's entire score in favor of Tangerine Dream's music for the latter. Bitter and upset by the rejection, Goldsmith never spoke to Scott again as a result even unto his passing.
• Critical Dissonance: On Rotten Tomatoes the film only holds a 33% rating with critics, but with audiences it holds a respectable 66% fresh rating.
• Cult Classic: Although the film was panned by critics and was one of the biggest box office flops of all time, it does have a fair amount of fans who consider it to be a very good action/adventure film. Numerous critics also re-evaluated the movie years later, pointing out that while it suffers from choppy editing caused by panic after trial screening (leading to flat characters and numerous plot holes), it's still one of the last big budget movies made solely with practical effects, giving it an unique feel of authenticity and without any of the effects visibly aging.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Among fans of the film, Herger the Joyful is undoubtably the most popular character.
  • Buliwyf as well, the role that launched Vladimir Kulich into great acclaim and recognition.
• Fridge Logic: The reason why the Northmen-Herger-Melchisidek translation chain doesn't match with what everyone is orginally saying isn't about bad translation or As Long as It Sounds Foreign. That's just telephone, with each participant of the chain changing a thing or two along the way.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This film is very popular in Russia, especially among historical reenactors and supporters of right-wing views, because the "northerners" in the film can be interpreted as Varangians and the film's events as if taking place in the territory of the future Kievan Rus. Moreover, the real Ahmad ibn Fadlan, on whom Banderas' character is based, is also known as one of the first authors to describe the life of the early Slavs, which makes the attitude to the film even more positive.
• Good Bad Translation: What Omar Sharif comments on what the Vikings say is pure comedy gold for anyone who understands Scandinavian languages.
• He Really Can Act: The Spanish Antonio Banderas, who is known for his roles portraying dashing Hispanics, plays a medieval Arab scholar, yet he is so awesome in this role that almost no one doubted his "Arab" background. It doesn't even sound that absurd when you consider that Banderas is Andalusian, a land that passed several centuries under Muslim domination.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • During production, the studio tried to force a significant change in Ahmad characterisation - namely, him no longer being an Arab nor a Muslim. A change that was successfully opposed by both Michael Crichton and John McTiernan. Years later, one of the things the film is most famous for is how positive and respectful it is in its portrayal of an Arab (main) character.
  • Antonio Banderas, a white actor, if one who might believably have some Arab genetics, plays here a full-blooded Arab. In 2020, however, he would be involved in a controversial and/or amusing incident in which he was called a "person of color" when he was announced as an Oscar nominee.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The dying vise as Signature Scene. She is even included as an intro in the songs of several Pagan-metal bands.
  • To a lesser degree, the "it's made of honey" scene became a mainstay meme about both Rules Lawyers and "paladin falls" jokes within people playing Tabletop RPG.
• Misaimed Fandom: The fact that the film is very famous for its respectful attitude to Arab culture and has an Arab as a protagonist does not prevent it from being very popular among people who are negative about Islam and multiculturalism. This is particularly notable among Russian and Scandinavian neo-pagan fandom.
• Periphery Demographic: Aside the status as a cult classic, the movie is also highly popular among Tabletop RPG players due to combination of all the story and setting elements. It's often advised to novice Game Masters as a way of explaining how to handle mid-power campaign and weird quirks of the Player Characters.
• Retroactive Recognition: Game of Thrones fans might recognize the actor who played Brynden "The Blackfish" Tully, Clive Russell, as Helfdane, in a setting that wouldn't be out of place in the series.
• Special Effects Failure: The sea storm scenes have aged pretty badly since 1999.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Vladimir Kulich, who played the lead, would later lament that one of the reasons why the movie didn't live up to its true potential was because the 13 characters weren't developed properly, and he even had a simple solution.
  Vladimir Kulich: You've got 13 characters that you don't develop fully. So when you start to lose them to the battles, you don't really care, because you are not connected to them. And I made a suggestion, which unfortunately didn't happen, 't was: We are on this boat. All you have to do is take a hand-held cam, walk around the boat as you travel and give each character 20 seconds. (...) But they never got that, so we lost a lot of characters in the first battle. You didn't know who they were.

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