XIII

This movie is from a Belgium comics book that was print in 1984, so if there is any cloning it can't be from 24 hours that came out years later! since 1984 a series of book with this character is on the market each year! there is more than 24 comics book actually on book selves in any french speaking country! when you follow the movies you can see the outline of 9 11 conspiracy type followed per the patriot act, ideas that came up in a 1984 comics book. Those two movies follow the original idea but as in any movies script, the movies is a bit different than the comics book, the general idea still in place. The movies have nothing to do with 24 hours, they are not even close! In case you didn't notice 24 hours action is 99% based in LA, seriously how much time a US president spend in LA during a 8 years term?

I love the show 24. This is close but not a duplicate --

I love the movies of Bourne Identity, again close but no cigar.

This is an original story line depicted in the make-up of a very talented director and writer.

If you want action, adventure, excitement, intrigue then this is the movie for you. I don't understand all of the negative feed back on this movie. I really enjoyed it.

Its a lot better than most of the so called action adventure movies out so far.

Thumbs up -- 8/10

Excellent series indeed! The story seems to be very close to the original graphic novel, except for the first part. They head to change the opening sequence in the comic, or the way XIII (Jason, or is he?)lost his memory. The writer of the comic novel (Jean Van Hamme - Belgian)admitted that he stole this scene from the book (written by Ludlum)that was the original story line for the Jason Bourne-trilogy.

In pre-Obama times, the producers dared in their future to have a non Caucasian male for a president. Good on them!

Must see for all graphic novel lovers! This one will put Belgian graphic novels on the international map again. Tintin with an attitude!

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.

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...