Too many fans seem to be blown away

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

America's first female president is shot during Memorial Day when she announces that she will bring back the troops from the Middle East. The shooter is about to leave the scene of the crime. Val is sitting in a car and communicates with someone that the shooter is about to leave. As soon as the killer exits an elevator two security guards shoot at him, but he kills them. Then Val confronts the killer himself but he manages to escape.Then a military higher up, General Carrington, meets some little black girl and they talk about some failed mission, bodies, and someone who escaped.Now we meet a hunter who discovers a guy hanging from a parachute and bleeding. He takes him to his home where his wife takes care of him. The guy has a tattoo on his upper chest "XIII". He has some flashbacks but also amnesia. He knows nothing previous to waking up at the hunter's home. But they also discover he's got great military/self-defense skills and has some muscle memory of accessing some sites with a memory card he had in his watch.The NSA run by the awesome Colonel Amos in the meantime is trying to find the killer and eventually make public the picture of XIII.But Val and some military unit show up and shoot up everyone at the hunter's place. XIII escapes but is eventually grabbed by the NSA. He's tortured, uh...interrogated, but since he's got amnesia he has nothing to say. He manages to escape. And always Val after him who grabs him at some point only to lose him again. Eventually the little black girl and Carrington contact XIII and tell him what is going on.XIII of course is on a mission to discover his past. He's got pictures of a woman. But Carrington lets him know that he has a task to complete. He's not really the killer but his job is to draw out a conspiracy deep within the government. XIII agrees to continue. And sure enough, since the election is coming up there are powerful interests trying to obtain a certain result. After the president was killed, several terrorist attacks have taken place on US soil and XIII discovers a major nuclear attack planned on election day. Terrorism is as usual used by hawks to try to direct foreign and domestic policy. And the surprises continue till the very end.XIII has a fantastic rich and complicated story involving political intrigue, conspiracies, red flag operations, terrorism, etc. It has some good action scenes as XIII is almost invincible. I wouldn't expect too much realism in the action scenes, or some of the political details but that's fine. It has a good cast in part: Dorff, Kilmer, Bryk (a revelation and star-making performance), McHattie, Bourgeois. But there are casting problems as well: Higgins is weak in a key role, Murino is gorgeous but her accent is rather thick. Davis is completely miscast. Editing could have been better to make the story a bit smoother. Things are unnecessarily unclear at first, with short nonsensical flashbacks. Direction too isn't as good as this story deserves. Still, in the absence of 24 or something like it, XIII is a thrilling movie/mini-series.

I've been a fan of the comics since I first read them years ago, so I've approached every adaptation I have found with a hope that it would do them justice, and a fear that it wouldn't. And yes, this is similar to the Bourne series, as I understand it, Van Hamme, the author, liked the Ludlum book(s?), and used some of the same ideas. This and the 2003 video game both get certain(but not necessarily the same) things right, whilst failing on others. In tone, this comes fairly close. It's disturbing, dark and, at times, the ideas in this are brutal. The humor in this, while it's relatively limited(and, frankly, doesn't all work, it can feel forced), is perhaps a tad much. The overall accuracy is reasonable, and several changes do make sense. They updated the story to present day(it was, when it was a graphic novel, as well, but the first one came out 14 years ago), and thus also made it more modern, adding tech and such, without that taking over. Several of the characters are changed(a couple are combined, as well) and not all of the casting makes perfect sense(what on Earth happened to Jones? Sure, she looks the part, but that's about it). The plot is interesting and captured and kept my attention throughout. It doesn't develop entirely the same, though a good bit of the core of it is intact. The awesome abilities are definitely still there. Dorff and Kilmer are great. I've heard this compared to the television show 24, and I suppose I can see why. It should be noted that not all of those aspects were foreign to this franchise before this hit small screens. Episode 1 ends in a way that ought to get viewers back for the second half(which starts with repetitions of plenty of what happened in the first one) of the three hour running time. The ending is not going to satisfy everyone, however, the source material taken into account, and the fact that it isn't easy to finish it, especially in this amount of time. The cinematography and editing are excellent, the action is very well-done and exciting. The music is well-done. The production values leave little to be desired. The acting varies, as does the dialog, but there are cool moments in this. This isn't terribly graphically violent, and there's no sex. Still, it is not intended for children, and it doesn't feel like it was made to be less strong. Language is mild and infrequent, if even that. I recommend this to fans of the original(as with any other translation from one medium to another, do not expect everything to be the same), as well as anyone who enjoys this type of film/mini. 7/10

I grew up with this Graphic Novel, waiting year after year what new twists they found to make the plot believable and continuing. As someone mentioned correctly, you can't expect to see everything of the novel in a short mini series. So the differences between the original and the movie did not disturb me, though most of the time the original novel is better.Why disappointed?The acting, the script,.. I might say the lack of money. Even the action scenes are terrible. About the actors, it is not only they perform without conviction (for that I blame the script), but they are also miscast.Lt Jones is supposed to be a strong, beautiful, sportive, young afro-American woman, not the person we see here. The same goes for Ben Carrington. I cannot believe they chose this actor for this part. Who believes that long ago he was a war hero?A great chance is, once more, missed to adapt a magnificent graphic novel to the screen.

I thought this miniseries was OK. Not outstanding, not too overdone. I recognized a lot of stuff from the game XIII, though I enjoyed the things they changed in the story. The comparison to Bourne only goes for 'the agent with memory-loss'. The story is completely different, and in my opinion the plot is way better. It's only a shame that this plot gets degraded by the open ending, which I also hated in the game.Possibly the best thing about this miniseries is that it's two movies, instead of one. They never would've fit the entire story in one movie and still make sense. Plus it's double the pleasure for the viewer.The acting was fine in general. Also Sam, played by Caterina Murino who featured in Casino Royale, was a good twist in the original story. As far as conspiracies go, this is a good one to enjoy watching.