XIII: The Conspiracy

The quality of this should be expected. For a TV mini-series, it's not terrible, but it's not that great either.

The Jason Bourne comparisons are warranted, as we open with an event, and then a trained assassin is found with no knowledge of who he is, or how he got to where he was dumped.

Then follows a bunch of action, a lot of discovery, and some pretty unbelievable set ups & sequences.

I'm just amazed at how bad Stephen Dorff is as an actor. I really enjoyed him in Blade, and I liked him in a few other movies that I saw after that. In this, he's just plain bad. He says all of his lines in a strained manner, as if he's trying to show that he's just a general bad ass. I couldn't grasp why he was trying so hard to prove that he's a tough guy. If you want to compare Bourne to this, Damon plays Bourne with restraint. He doesn't need to prove he's a bad ass by speaking. His actions do that. Dorff shows no remorse for anything he does. In this type of movie, we have to believe that Dorff's character wants to really find out what happened to him, but because of the way he delivers his lines, it's almost as if he doesn't really care, he just wants to kill anyone involved in putting him in these situations.

I had to remind myself continually that this is a made for TV mini-series, which is credit to the cinematographer, and the director. Most of the action sequences are pretty intense, and not campy. The hand to hand combat scenes are especially crisp, and were a highlight for me.

There were still many sequences of events that were just terrible, and didn't fit any sort of realistic time line, Dorff recovers from major injuries in record time, people travel massive distances in 30 minutes as if they were telaported there. Again, it's TV so I can suspend my disbelief a little for these types of things.

One major plus is Catrina Murino as Sam. She is GORGEOUS and worth watching. I couldn't take my eyes off her every time she was on the screen. I wish they would have done more with her character, and I really hope to see more of her in upcoming movies. Her acting was also very believable, even though there's no way someone that good looking just lives in New York as a resident, and isn't a model or celebrity. I remember her from Casino Royale, and she did well there also.

Val Kilmer also does a pretty good job in his role. He's more of a complimentary player in this movie. He's generally ominous as the bad commander, and it's a pretty believable turn.

If you have nothing better to do but watch a fun little mini-series, I would say go for it, but I can't recommend you go out of your way to find this thing, as there's nothing special to report.

Several reviews compare this to the Bourne series and I don't think it makes sense. This is not a super production and you cannot expect the same level of detail than the million $$ Bourne series. However, the plot is very good and really gripping plus the characters are quite interesting. In addition there is a good amount of action - maybe not the most revolutionary action scenes - and enough to keep you gripped from the beginning to the end of the show. The acting is good but don't expect anything too deep with complex personalities and characters. Someone compared this to Blade with Stephen Dorff, and IMO the acting is globally way better than Blade.

I read some of the bad reviews there and I was worried something would be silly in the middle of the plot, but no. This is one of the best spy/action TV miniseries I have seen.

I just watched this as they aired the series as one 171-minute long movie, but it didn't feel long at all since there's always something interesting or at least exciting going on in this show/movie. Honestly, I'm not that familiar with the Bourne character or saga (I've only seen one of the installments, plus the older TV show with Richard Chamberlain as Bourne) but I think this one is enjoyable on its own terms.

The premise is similar to "Bourne": a man wakes up suffering from heavy amnesia, unable to remember his name or any whereabouts about his life before that moment. He soon finds out that the president of the US has been assassinated and that he is being chased after, and that he has a tattoo on his upper chest with the number "XIII". From that on, he will have to survive and find out who he is and why he has so many and such fierce enemies.

The plot is quite smart, it does not provide (or need) many cliffhangers or unexpected turns until the final part. It is also a smarter-than-average plot for what you would expect from an action movie. The characters are not terribly well developed, but all or most main actors do a good job.

just finished watching this... it didn't take long before i realized, 'oh...'24' clone....dorf playing the sutherland role... i'd like to use the pun that the reason it's called '13' is because it's about half as good, but that wouldn't be true...it's almost as good or better than some of '24'. but, still, a clone...lots of what you'll see here, you've seen before... but it's not bad for television... the irony i speak of in the heading is that when i came here, to IMDb, to comment, the first recommendation from 'the database' towards the bottom of the title page of 13 is, of course, '24'... parts of it were ridiculous...people don't have conversations in a life or death hand to hand combat situation...they just try to survive...there were other moments i found ridiculous to the point of comically amusing... but not enough for me not to recommend this if you don't mind what i've already stated... it seems to be a cut above 'regular TV fare'. as is '24'.. just don't expect anything new here...

I have never played the computer game and haven't read the comic series yet, but after watching this movie, I will surely try to check both things out! It is true that this movie has many similarities to The Bourne series and that many films have the same concept and that's the reason why I don't give this movie a top rating.

But the story is well thought, there are many nice action elements, a lot of tension, some surprises and a little twist in the ending. The acting is well done, especially by the bad boys, but not outstanding. The movie is well directed and has some really good images and the dialogues are also well composed unlike many other films of the genre, you can really see that there has been some budget in this movie and that it is a high quality product. It is sad that the movie hasn't been in every country's cinemas though. I watched the about 180 minutes long version in one shot as it came out on DVD and I didn't find a single minute of boredom in the film what is quite exceptional.

In conclusion, this movie is more creative than many other similar movies with the same ideas and very entertaining so that I can't understand most of the negative critics. This movie is nothing revolutionary, but still one of the best of its kind.