Beowulf
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Year: 2007
Genre: Adventure (in a Fantasy setting)
Starring: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Angelina Jolie, Crispin Glover, Robin Wright Penn, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/
Overview
A retelling of the classic Beowulf tale, wherein a king sends out a call for heroes to come fight the Grendel, a monster that is terrorising his village. The mighty Beowulf comes, conquers and more.
Substance
The story isn’t too bad, but Beowulf himself is one of those superhuman type characters with no flaws, so you know he’s always gonna come through, which really takes a lot of the excitement away.
It’s hard to comment on the performances since they are all CGI and kinda fit more under ‘Style’, but they are a little bit wooden. I can only assume that is the fault of the CGI, since it is quite a high calibre cast.
Rating: 
Style
The CGI looks nice enough, and there are some cool set pieces, but the performances are somewhat wooden and frankly I’d have been happy enough to see it in live action.
Rating:
Entertainment
Some great moments, and some fantastic thrills, but always somewhat ruined by the fact that you know Beowulf will come through.
Kinda removes the excitement factor.
Rating:
Summary
I can’t honestly suggest avoiding it at all costs, but equally I wouldn’t recommend you go out of your way to see it either.
Overall Rating:
2 Comments to “Beowulf”
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By Michael, 07.01.2010 @ 04:07
I think the complaint that the protagonist of an action film (or really any Hollywood) film is going to “win” is a pretty odd one. Surely going into the majority of mainstream films you know that the protagonist is going to emerge victorious? To be honest Id even go so far as to say that in terms of an action film the protagonists ultimate victory is more or less a genre convention. Even more so when its based on a historical (in terms of the story itself not the events
) source. Im also curious if you watched the normal version or the directors cut? Im unsure of the difference, even though the BR of the directors cut has been langusihing under me bed for some time now (because thats where I store my Blu Rays, not because Im punishing it).
By Dave, 11.01.2010 @ 01:35
You’re right. The hero will always win. But what I mean by that statement is more that usually you still have the thrill of ‘how’ will they win. Take Die Hard for example – you know McClane is gonna overcome the terrorists, but at times it doesn’t look that way; he takes an almighty beating along the way. The odd are against him. Perhaps it’s more about not knowing ‘how’ they’ll win. Perhaps that is a better definition? The odds certainly were always in Beowulf’s favour in this film.
Also, a good film will draw you in enough that you often forget that victory is inevitable. Not so with this.