Beowulf [Blu-ray] [2007] [US Import]

A fantasy movie based on the old epic story of beowulf, which was pretty much the first thing to be written down in the english language. This is a new take on the story - about a warrior who battles a monster called grendel - and is quite an interesting updating, although purists probably won't be that pleased.

In the first half of the film beowulf battles grendel, then grendel's seductive mother. as a result of this his actions come back to haunt him years later, when he's an old king longing for his glory days. the second section of the film is mildly stronger as it's a nice meditation on growing old and harking back to things that used to be. As a fantasy movie it's very good rather than great and rates 7.5/10.

the big selling point of the movie is that it's done with computer animation and stop motion capture. thus real actors played the characters and the computer versions you see on screen were animated based on their performances. the effects are interesting, as they look almost but not quite lifelike. the human figures are very good, the monsters superb, but a lot of long shots and horse riding and the like look more like cheap model work.

Still it's an interesting experiment and worth a look for that.

This is a DIRECTORS CUT but apart from a few scenes that are slightly longer and bloodier than in the cinema version I could see no difference.

The second disc comes with the following extras:

a twenty five minute long making of documentary. fascinating to watch, when you see what the actors went through for the stop motion process, wearing jumpsuits and markers on their face and in minimal sets. Oddly, angelina jolie is conspicuous by her absence from this and all the other features.

There are ten short films about life on the set and what went on there, all running roughly two minutes. these are interesting for the same reasons as the main making of

A short feature about the origin of the story of beowulf. interesting history, but a feature that could do with being a bit longer

two six minutes features on the design of the film and of the monsters. these are short but interesting.

and a two minute feature on the main character and the casting of the part. interesting but brief.

there are subtitles and language tracks in pretty much every language out there.

Quite a good film, and a very good package for it

Being a Noggin the Nog fan at 6, I naturally warmed to the Beowulf saga as a teen. Plus I enjoyed John Gardner's 'Grendel' novel as a student, where the Beowulf story is retold from Grendel's perspective: "His mother is totally incommunicative. In fact, his only real friends are the Danes he kills. Still, he knows he is dependent on Hrothgar's survival. If I murdered the last of the Scyldings, he muses, what would I live for?".

When I found out the writer of the book 'Stardust' was helping to produce two movies, 'Stardust' and 'Beowulf', I knew I had to see them at the cinema. I took my son (11) to see both ('Stardust' was great). However, although my son enjoyed the film (well the two main action bits anyway), I did feel Beowulf was rather violent for just a 12 rating - this is one of the few films where I was actually shocked at one point. Beowulf fights Grendel without any clothes to prevent his armour hindering him, and there are articles placed about the mead hall that conveniently hide any obviously male bits from the viewer - and this overt coyness irritatingly distracts you from the horror that's unfolding - i.e. Grendel's attack (after that Beowulf faces Grendel's mother in a loin cloth - not that he needed it then). When Grendel breaks in to the banqueting hall, looking frankly a bit too decayingly revolting, he proceeds to bite off the heads of the hapless Dane warriors and spray them up the wall (but that apparently isn't as disturbing as a PC generated male figure in the buff - although even the Crazy Frog was anatomically correct on kids TV, and Bart Simpson for that matter). Granted my son didn't seem perturbed by the graphic violence, but a 12 rating can bring in kids of any age with their dads. It doesn't look quite so shocking on the small screen via DVD, but be warned if your young preteen sons want to watch this movie (I found this aspect slightly worse than similarly 12 rated King Kong, also a great movie otherwise). However for a 9+ audience all should be fine, and on the big screen this film is probably less disturbing for little ones than PG rated Jurassic Park.

Otherwise I loved the movie (other than wishing Grendel had inherited his mothers, fathers and step-brothers good looks). The change to the story and Grendel's family tree/mothers fate was fine (it made Beowulf more vulnerable and so an even greater hero in overcoming his shame to defeat the avenging fire dragon). The mix of accents didn't worry me (who wants a Danish `allo allo', and Beowulf and Hrothgar are from very different settlements anyway, being born in Sweden and Denmark respectively). Plus Anthony Hopkins [Hrothgar], Brendan Gleeson [Wiglaf], Angelina Jolie [Grendel's mum] and John Malkavich [Unferth] provide superb support for Ray Winstone's Beowulf. The PC animation was pretty good if a little stilted occasionally, and I could certainly see the attraction of Grendel's mother (killing her looked a heck of lot harder). Perhaps I would have preferred a live action `Conan the Barbarian' style version, as much of the fighting and monsters would have been the same CGI anyway, but I was impressed with Beowulf the great Nordic warrior, he cut a believable tough heroic figure and the film evoked well the tragedy of his plight as he goes from hero to zero, and back again. Besides, any Beowulf is better than nothing and this was a good stab at the story. The original poem is a long slog anyway, but worth scanning through - you can find it on the web for free. Also try Gardner's Grendel, and Seamus Heaneys poetical interpretation `Beowulf' (it's more than a translation and has the original alongside to compare). The original Beowulf isn't impossible to read, and rather like Mallory's Morte d'Arthur it puts you closer to those of the era if you read it as written down.

I didn't actually notice much had changed in the director's cut other than the fight scenes are noticeably more gory than the movie release, but this doesn't actually detract from the film at all and does add a bit more gritty realism - after all Grendel and his mum are the stuff of nightmares. However those watching with their sons might opt for the standard release. As usual I haven't watched the extras yet, other than the `making off' which was interesting, showing how the live actors helped the CGI movements - and it made you wish the actors were in the film when you see every nuance of their real facial expressions. But otherwise a pretty good movie. Also check out the scary age-15-rated SciFi movie take on Beowulf/Grendel: 'Outlander', released in 2008, that very effectively mixes CGI and live action.

I was quite prepared for a swashbuckling adventure far removed from the old english poem, but this film was a very big disappointment. I hadn't realised that it was going to be CGI. Although CGI is fine for cartoon characters, animals and machines, it isn't nearly good enough to carry off human faces and body movements. The characters in this story have fairly significant emotional drivers, and those emotions are impossible to convey through CGI, despite the acting talents of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich. Winstone is remarkably good in this film, and almost good enough to carry it, but ultimately the screenplay, the CGI and the other characters are too weak.

Surprisingly, the screenplay sticks fairly close to the story of the poem, but there are two big 21st century hollywood additions. Firstly, sex. This becomes a key plot device, somewhat overused, in that almost all the characters are driven by sex in one way or another. The second, being linked to the first is that all heroes in the 21st Century now have to be flawed. And their big flaw in this re-telling of the Beowulf story is sex. I didn't mind that they had to "sex up" the screenplay for the 21st Century, but I think that the idea of a hubristic and then flawed (and then redeemed) Beowulf is so far off the mark that it totally loses the feeling of what a nordic hero is. In making the hero flawed, the film has flawed itself.

Also worth mentioning that the sound mixing and sound track are really poor. Some of the characters' key speeches are very faint, and of course the fact that much of the dialogue is delivered as though it is being read rather than acted doesn't help. In one scene Beowulf is risking his life riding on a Dragon's back and the music sounds like it might be accompanying a knitting competition.

This film would have got one star were it not for the fact that the CGI creation of Grendel the monster is brilliantly gruesome and because Ray Winstone does occasionally sparkle through the CGI. But this film is still one to be avoided.