Movie Review: Beowulf

It's been so long since I've read the story of Beowulf that I keep wanting to confuse it with Gilgamesh. They're both epic historical tales that I read at about the same time.

What I remember about Beowulf is that there was a great Norse drinking hall and kingdom that had fallen into misery and suffering because of attacks from a creature called Grendel. Many heroes had come to save them and all had died. Then Beowulf comes, fights Grendel in the nude and wins, then has to go kill Grendel's mother. Not terribly creative. Sounds like standard warriors boasting around the mead cooler.

This covers the first half of the movie. A few minor changes and then the story becomes much grander, longer, and more interesting.

One of the main things to note about this movie is that it's completely digital. People are hard to make digitally. They look fake. You may remember "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" tried really hard but fell short. "The Polar Express" tried but also came up short. If you saw "The Animatrix" you may remember one short film called "Final Flight of the Osiris" where the digital people were fabulous. The fight scene at the beginning was particularly good. Well, "Beowulf" was on par with "Final Flight of the Osiris" for realism. I think we're only about a decade from George Lucas making digital Luke, Leia, and Han and making new Star Wars movies.

Lots of nudity. Beowulf always has something in the way while fighting in the nude. Grendel's mom is based on Angelina Jolie with the naughty bits minimized so that you'd get a similar look if she were in a bikini. I've no idea how much they tweeked her body. I'm also assuming that the king's ass was not really based on Sir Anthony Hopkins' ass.

And action, action, action. Beowulf fighting sea monsters, Beowulf fighting Grendel, Beowulf fighting a dragon, but with a respectable story holding it all together.

I'll probably get this on DVD. I expect this will be the movie that HD-DVD/BluRay owners must have just like "The Matrix" was the movie DVD owners had to have.